Africa Wild

Bushmeat hunting and extinction risk to the world’s mammals

BY WILLIAM J. RIPPLE, KATHARINE ABERNETHY, MATTHEW G. BETTS, GUILLAUME CHAPRON, RODOLFO DIRZO, MAURO GALETTI, TAAL LEVI, PETER A. LINDSEY, DAVID W. MACDONALD, BRIAN MACHOVINA, THOMAS M. NEWSOME, CARLOS A. PERES, ARIAN D. WALLACH, CHRISTOPHER WOLF, HILLARY YOUNG - 19 OCTOBER 2016 - THE ROYAL SOCIETY PUBLISHING

Abstract

Terrestrial mammals are experiencing a massive collapse in their population sizes and geographical ranges around the world, but many of the drivers, patterns and consequences of this decline remain poorly understood. Here we provide an analysis showing that bushmeat hunting for mostly food and medicinal products is driving a global crisis whereby 301 terrestrial mammal species are threatened with extinction. Nearly all of these threatened species occur in developing countries where major coexisting threats include deforestation, agricultural expansion, human encroachment and competition with livestock. The unrelenting decline of mammals suggests many vital ecological and socio-economic services that these species provide will be lost, potentially changing ecosystems irrevocably. We discuss options and current obstacles to achieving effective conservation, alongside consequences of failure to stem such anthropogenic mammalian extirpation. We propose a multi-pronged conservation strategy to help save threatened mammals from immediate extinction and avoid a collapse of food security for hundreds of millions of people.

1. Introduction

Rapid loss of biodiversity in recent times indicates that a sixth mass extinction event is underway on the Earth, whereby the average rate of vertebrate species loss is now up to 1000 times higher than background rates [1]. Population sizes of vertebrate species have been declining, mainly due to the twin threats of direct exploitation and habitat destruction [2,3]. Unsustainable hunting for consumption and trade of wild meat (also known as bushmeat) by humans represents a significant extinction threat to wild terrestrial mammal populations, perhaps most notably in parts of Asia, Africa and South America [4–6]. Here, we refer to predominantly unregulated (and often illegal and unsustainable) harvesting of wildlife for human consumption as ‘bushmeat hunting’ or ‘wild meat’ hunting. This is distinguished from legal or regulated hunting of wildlife which can be sustainable. This global bushmeat hunting crisis is a fundamentally distressing problem to address because it is intimately tied to human development challenges such as food insecurity, emergent disease risks and land-use changes [7]. While many ethnic groups have hunted wildlife for subsistence over millennia, often with highly detrimental effects [8], the unsustainablility of this practice has accelerated in many areas due to growing human populations, an increasing tendency for wild meat to be traded commercially [9], and the widespread adoption of firearms and motorized transport that increase the efficiency and spatial extent of hunting [10,11]. Larger species are typically targeted by bushmeat hunters first and are also the least able to bear hunting offtakes [12–14]. As wildlife populations outside protected areas decline, poaching pressure is increasing in many parks and reserves. As a consequence many forests, savannahs, grasslands and deserts in the developing world are now becoming ‘empty landscapes’ [14] devoid of harvest-sensitive wild mammals
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Domestic bushmeat consumption an “urgent” threat to migratory mammals, U.N. says

by Carolyn Cowan on 20 September 2021

• A recent U.N. report has found that many migratory mammals are in grave danger of being hunted for meat for domestic consumption, which in many cases poses a greater risk to population numbers than international trade.

• There is also strong evidence that wild meat taking and consumption is linked to zoonotic diseases.

• The authors say that while wild meat consumption cannot be eliminated because it is an indispensable source of nutrition and income for rural communities, they call for improved national regulations and international cooperation to safeguard threatened species.

Every October, at least 10 million straw-colored fruit bats (Eidolon helvum) arrive in Kasanka National Park in Zambia from the rainforests of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Besides its spectacular 2,000-kilometer (1,200-mile) migration, the species has the dubious honor of being Africa’s most hunted bat. Hundreds of thousands are taken every year for human consumption. And it’s not alone in its plight.

According to a recent U.N. report, many migratory mammals are in grave danger from harvesting for wild meat consumption. And of those species that are taken for their meat, the vast majority are consumed at a subsistence level or traded within national borders, rather than internationally. Capture and consumption of migratory mammals also significantly increases the risk of zoonotic disease transmission to humans, the findings say.

Researchers examined the impacts of wild meat taking, trade and consumption on 105 wild mammal species protected under the U.N. Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS), including ungulates, primates, carnivores, elephants and bats.

Their findings show that 70% of mammal species protected under the CMS are used for wild meat consumption, which is the key motivation behind both legal and illegal hunting. Other motivations included cultural practices, medicinal use, trophy hunting and human-wildlife conflict.

Experts say the findings have far-reaching implications for national and international efforts to protect threatened species.

“This report indicates for the first time a clear and urgent need to focus on domestic use of protected migratory species of wild animals, across their range,” Amy Fraenkel, CMS executive secretary, said in a statement. “We need to ensure that domestic laws and enforcement efforts are able to tackle this major threat to CMS species.”


Straw-colored fruit bats (Eidolon helvum), Africa’s most hunted bat species. Image by Konrad Bidziński via Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Migratory mammals in decline

The seasonal migration patterns of many migratory species make them particularly susceptible targets for hunters, due to the predictable arrival of species in a particular area.

Primates and ungulates are at particular risk, especially during times of conflict or famine and during land-use change, the report says, citing drastic declines and extinctions of several migratory mammals, such as the scimitar-horned oryx (Oryx dammah), once prized for its meat and hide in North Africa, but now extinct in the wild.

Illegal hunting for meat was identified as the primary threat to three gorilla subspecies: western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla), Cross River gorillas (Gorilla gorilla diehli) and Grauer’s gorillas (Gorilla beringei graueri).

According to the report, ambiguous, outdated and often poorly enforced national legislation is partly to blame for unsustainable harvesting. Other factors include the ever-increasing demand from expanding urban populations for exotic “luxury meats.” For example, straw-colored fruit bats and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) are freely available in urban markets in parts of Africa. Urban demand also fuels unsustainable hunting, diminishing available yields for wildlife-dependent rural communities, the report says.


Children carrying bushmeat in Brazil. Image by Luke Parry/CIFOR via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Risk of zoonoses

The report also presents strong evidence that wild meat taking and consumption are linked to zoonotic diseases that are transmitted from animals to humans.

Speaking at a press conference accompanying the report’s release, Ian Redmond, a tropical field biologist and ambassador for CMS, said the conditions under which animals are kept and slaughtered in markets heighten risks.

“They’re kept in horrible cages where they’re stressed and suffering from trauma, and so their immune systems are suppressed. You almost couldn’t design a better way of encouraging pathogens, viruses, bacteria, parasites to jump species,” he said.

A total of 60 zoonotic viral pathogens were hosted by the 105 migratory species studied, according to the research, which cites wild meat taking and consumption as the direct and causative agents for the spillover into humans of the monkeypox virus, SARS, Sudan Ebola virus and Zaire Ebola virus.

As infrastructure, human settlements and agriculture encroach deeper into natural ecosystems, people and wildlife are forced into closer contact, which opens up new habitats and animals to hunters and further heightens the risk of spreading pathogens.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us that the overexploitation of nature comes at a heavy cost,” Inger Andersen, executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme, said in a statement. “We urgently need to depart from business-as-usual. In so doing, we can save many species from the brink of extinction and protect ourselves from future outbreaks of zoonotic diseases.”


A caged civet in a wildlife market in Indonesia. Image by Wolf Clifton – Animal People, Inc. via Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0)

Affordable alternatives

Reversing the decline of migratory mammals will not only require community-level education and fortified governmental protection efforts, it will also take international cooperation to develop a more sustainable global food system. The report comes ahead of the U.N. Food Systems Summit, to be held this week, which will address food systems and how to feed the world sustainably.

Fraenkel said at the press conference that many impoverished rural communities rely on locally abundant wildlife for nutrition and income. Therefore, the impact of wild meat harvesting on migratory species does not imply a blanket ban on all wild meat per se. Where it is appropriate and sustainable, taking of other more abundant or resilient species might still be a viable option. The bottom line is that “any use of wild animals should be legal, sustainable and consider the health risks for both humans and wild animals,” Fraenkel said.

Robert Nasi, director-general of the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), said giving people an affordable alternative to wild meat is likely to be key to maintaining hunting at sustainable levels. “The thing that we cannot do is what is happening in most of the legislation, which is to forbid people without giving them any other alternatives … That is not working,” he said.

Other strategies could include offering help to maintain higher-quality market conditions in exchange for restrictions on the types of species that can be sold. Through such means, Nasi said, the risk of pandemics, with their huge cost to society, could be reduced for a minimal investment in improving the livelihoods of rural communities.

Redmond said he hopes that policymakers will take note of the report’s findings and step up actions to protect migratory species.

“Let’s not wait until the species are extinct,” he said. “Let’s find the alternatives now so those species can continue to play their role in the ecosystem on which we all depend.”

It will never stop until all is gone, besides protected areas!

Illegal hunting will go on forever if rural poverty is not addressed.

and to resolve the poverty problem is needed so much time, that it will be too late.