The bushmeat trade not only threatens African wildlife but global human health too
Nine adults and a chicken were crammed into our bush taxi, an oversized Peugeot, for the two-hour drive northwards from Garoua to Maroua, one of Cameroon’s few pre-colonial cities.
Along the way dead monkeys were displayed for sale at the roadside. Although bushmeat - the meat of wild animals, but usually referring to the remains of animals killed in the forests and savannahs of sub-Saharan Africa - is officially banned in Cameroon because it endangers wildlife, it is nevertheless commonly sold. Go to a market in a Cameroonian city like Yaounde or Douala and you might find snake, monkey, pangolin or lizard, or even gorilla, without too much difficulty.
A report, Species in Bushmeat Trade In Cameroon and The Republic of Congo, published in 2022 by Traffic, a global advisor on the trade in wild species to governments and intergovernmental processes, found that African civets, pangolins, great apes and species of antelope were just a few of the protected species found for sale in 2019 by 59 randomly selected bushmeat vendors across the Republic of Congo and Cameroon.
Poaching is a great threat to biodiversity in Cameroon, as in many other sub-Saharan African countries. Bushmeat markets thrive especially in the rainforest regions of the south of Cameroon, especially in and near the logging and mining towns, where distribution is made simpler by the increase in roadbuilding as these operations extend.
Bushmeat is both the main source of protein for many impoverished villagers in Cameroon’s forests, and also helps supplement scant incomes. It is also a delicacy for rich city-dwellers, conferring them social status and serving as a reminder of their heritage. Nostalgia plays a part too: as many Africans move to urbanised areas, consuming bushmeat reminds them of when they ate it when they were young and living in rural regions.
There is also a widespread perception that meat from wildlife is of better quality than if farmed, as it is obviously free range and the use of antibiotics and other drugs, unlike with intensive farming, has been avoided.
The bushmeat trade a much greater threat to wildlife than recreational (or big game) hunting in Africa. Indeed, research by the Wildlife Conservation Network across 11 African countries, surveying managers of protected areas, NGO staff and tourism industry representatives, found that bushmeat hunting was the biggest threat to wildlife in protected areas, alongside hunting for body parts such as rhino horn and elephant tusks.
Recreational hunting continues to be promoted because it is so financially attractive to governments and those who offer it: holidaying hunters pay thousands of pounds for the privilege. Indeed, as I write, a look on bookyourhunt.com, for example, nets a choice of 30 hunts available in Cameroon, ranging in cost from £6,170 to £43,118.
On top of that, even the smallest small-scale farmer in Cameroon can think killing predators like lion or leopard is of personal benefit, even though more and more species are reaching the brink of extinction. If a lion attacks livestock worth several hundred pounds each year, it’s much cheaper to eradicate them with a bullet or poison than focus on better husbandry, a night guard or strong fencing and gates.
Animals, usually the babies of those killed for bushmeat, are also taken to feed the animals of the exotic animals trade, such as chimpanzees and parrots. It is no surprise there is such a trade considering that African grey parrots, for example, commonly sell for hundreds to more than a thousand pounds abroad, and other types can sell for several thousand. Exotic skins and other trophy items like bongo and leopard are also in demand.
The thriving bushmeat trade has also spread to America and Europe. Western cities with significant bushmeat markets include London, Paris, New York, Washington DC and Toronto. The Born Free Foundation reckons that around 7,500 tonnes of illegal meat products enter Britain every year.
Overall, the bushmeat trade represents anything from one to five million tonnes of meat taken from central Africa’s rain forests, the Congo Basin, annually, although many experts consider this an underestimation.
However, the bushmeat trade is not just a threat to wildlife populations, but to humans too. People who come in contact with the bodily fluids of wild animals risk becoming infected with a zoonotic disease, ie a disease that jumps from animals to humans. Those most at risk are hunters and those who prepare and cook bushmeat, as well as those eating undercooked bushmeat, as unless the meat is cooked fully the pathogens spreading viruses may not have been destroyed.
There are numerous viruses that animals can pass onto humans, some of the most dangerous being anthrax, TB, cholera, Ebola, SARS, HIV/AIDS and yellow fever.
Scientists believe that chimpanzees, bonobos and other primates in West Africa were the initial source of HIV infections in humans. They believe that the version of the immunodeficiency virus they carried, called simian immunodeficiency virus, or SIV, was most likely transmitted to humans and then mutated into HIV when humans hunted these primates for meat and came into contact with their infected blood. Over the following decades the virus slowly spread across Africa and later into other parts of the world. The earliest known case of human infection with HIV was detected in a blood sample collected from a man in the Democratic Republic of Congo, near to Cameroon, in 1959.
It is believed that bats were the likely source of the 2003 SARS epidemic and the Ebola epidemic that swept through west Africa between 2014 and 2016, the latter resulting in more than 11,000 deaths.
In 2011 there were more than 500 infections and at least five fatalities following an anthrax outbreak in the hippo population along the South Luangwa River in Zambia after hippo meat was consumed.
Another virus crossing over to humans that has been identified is simian foamy virus, which is similar to HIV. Although the virus is endemic in African monkeys and apes, its ability to cross over to humans was proven in 2004 by a Cameroonian/United States research team. Whilst the team identified the retrovirus in guenons, mandrills and gorillas, it also found that 10 out of 1,100 Cameroonian residents it tested also had the virus, principally from being bitten by a primate, and increasing fears of another zoonotic epidemic.
This year in the Democratic Republic of Congo a dangerous strain of mpox, formally known as monkeypox and a virus from the same family as smallpox, has emerged and been killing adults and children and causing miscarriages. It has a 5% fatality rate in adults and 10% in children. Scientists fear that it being highly transmissible means that it could spread internationally. An earlier strain of the virus was found in people who ate infected bushmeat and it is believed that this strain is spreading from person to person via both sexual and non-sexual contact.
Despite these worrying developments it can be difficult to convince rural village dwellers in Africa that there are health risks from consuming bushmeat, when they and their ancestors may have done so for centuries without any problems. And when there is a struggle to get protein, and there are scant alternatives available, they may feel they don’t have an option to give up bushmeat.
The further poachers retreat into the ever-shrinking rainforests (for example, 40% cent of Ethiopia was covered in forest in 1900, yet under 12% remains today), and the more that bushmeat is consumed, the greater the danger that people are exposed to new viruses. Indeed, residents of Cameroon’s rainforests have noted incidents where consumers of bushmeat – almost whole villages in some cases – have died after consuming gorilla and chimpanzee meat.
Fortunately in recent years more and more educational campaigns have been raising awareness about the health and ecological risks associated with the bushmeat trade, and promoting other options such as the farming of cane rats and establishing legal game farming. In Zambia, for example, a hard-hitting campaign entitled This Is Not a Game (thisisnotagame.info) points out that illegal bushmeat is unregulated, unhygienically prepared and dangerous to eat, and that illegal possession of wild meat carries a sentence of up to seven years in prison under the Zambia Wildlife Act.
And in more and more territories poachers are being eradicated, something I saw for myself on a visit to Nkhotahota Wildlife Reserve in Malawi a few years ago.
Non-governmental conservancy organisation African Parks took over Nkhotahota in 2015. The reserve had a difficult past, with years of poaching and lawlessness seeing the wildlife decimated. There were more than 1,500 elephants here in the 1990s, but by the time African Parks got involved the number had reduced to fewer than one hundred. With little wildlife left, there was no reason for tourists to visit, the park had little value to the local community, and tourism revenue disappeared. Staff members had low morale and were ineffectively trained. Anti-poaching measures didn’t work, and poaching was at very high levels.
“There was no road network so most of the park was inaccessible,” Obedi Mkandawire, a member of the park’s management, told me. “It was not fenced, so there were widespread conflicts. Staff had inadequate radios and mobiles, so communication was bad. Vehicles and equipment were limited, as were conservation and education initiatives.”
In 2017 164km of fencing was completed. Construction was started on an education and visitor centre, and law enforcement improved. An office block and housing for staff was built, and the road network improved. Monitoring of the elephants began, more and more staff were taken on, and animals were increasingly translocated. Community support and education was improved - even something as simple as teaching locals how to collect fruit and mushrooms without damaging the park would over time bring a lot of benefit.
“110,000 people live around this park and could invade it and poach anytime if they wanted,” said Obedi. “But they don’t. They see the value in what we’re doing.”
By 2018 the protected sanctuary used for the safe reintroduction of animals had increased from 17,000 hectares to 90,000 hectares. More than 500 elephants and 1,500 game animals were introduced between 2016 and 2017 from other parks. Vehicles, roads and radios were upgraded.
“There’s so much to do,” said Obedi. “We need to install electricity and solar power, build roads and boreholes and bridges, drive out poachers, train rangers, provide homes, offices, a visitor centre, improve communications. We are working with the police and judiciary, which are issuing tough fines. For example, a poacher caught with bushmeat here could expect a 13-year prison sentence.
“But poachers are less and less of a problem. Eighty-six poachers were arrested in 2016 and just 22 in 2017. More that 700 snares were recovered then. The park only recovered two snares in 2011.”
There are numerous encouraging signs around Africa that illegal bushmeat may one day become a thing of the past in much of sub-Saharan Africa. However, change won’t happen overnight, as these populations are being asked to cast away generations of tradition and behaviour, and widespread good, workable food alternatives need to be put in their place.
This situation really does affect us all. Thanks for addressing the subject.