Wild Conservation – A Houston Zoo Blog

No pictures today as we will touch briefly on the issue of illegal bushmeat and gather much of the information from the Bushmeat Crisis Task Force (BCTF). This will be just an introduction and then we can steer you to more detailed websites for information.

Bushmeat is simply defined as meat that comes from the “bush” and in Africa this means the forests. For generations, local communities carried out subsistence hunting, gathering animals as needed as a vital protein source. But at some point the hunting of bushmeat went from sustainable to the “Bushmeat Crisis”. It is defined on the BCTF website as “Commercial, illegal and unsustainable hunting for the meat of wild animals is causing widespread local extinctions in Asia and West Africa. It is a crisis because of rapid expansion to countries and species which were previously not at risk, largely due to an increase in commercial logging, with an infrastructure of roads and trucks that links forests and hunters to cities and consumers.”

Gorillas, chimpanzees, elephants, forest antelope, crocodiles, monkeys, birds, buffalo, hippo’s…are all taken as part of the trade, endangered species – protected or not. Again directly from the BCTF website: Though habitat loss is often cited as the primary threat to wildlife, commercial hunting for the meat of wild animals has become the most significant immediate threat to the future of wildlife in Africa and around the world; it has already resulted in widespread local extinctions in Asia and West Africa. This threat to wildlife is a crisis because it is rapidly expanding to countries and species which were previously not at risk, largely due to an increase in commercial logging, with an infrastructure of roads and trucks that links forests and hunters to cities and consumers. The bushmeat crisis is a human tragedy as well: the loss of wildlife threatens the livelihoods and food security of indigenous and rural populations most depend on wildlife as a staple or supplement to their diet, and bushmeat consumption is increasingly linked to deadly diseases like HIV/AIDS, Ebola, and Foot and Mouth disease.

Simply stated – if one village or community hunts wildlife as a sustainable resource, there are opportunities to protect endangered species and protect habitats. When wildlife is taken illegally, in mass quantity not for personal use but to sell for profit, and shipped across country borders, it is no longer sustainable.

Take a few minutes to learn about the issues facing wildlife not in only in Africa, but Asia and other developing nations at the Bushmeat Crisis Task Force website http://www.bushmeat.org

I will just add here that last year, nearly 300,000 pounds of Bushmeat was confiscated being flown into the US illegally. The problem is not simply related to only developing nations.

Tomorrow’s Gorilla Blog : A War for Wildlife

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