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Study tracks hunting trends in Africa’s biodiverse forests

Study tracks hunting trends in Africa’s biodiverse forests
Vendors selling fruit bats in Brazzaville often use their teeth to debone the bats’ wings for customers. Bats are common vectors for many diseases. PHOTO/NATional GEOgraphic/Brent Stirton

Increased commercial hunting and associated depletion of large-bodied wildlife in African tropical forests, is a source of critical environmental concerns, a ground-breaking new study on wildlife hunting has revealed.

The study was published on January 7 in Nature Sustainability by lead authors Daniel Ingram (Durrell Institute of Conservation of Ecology, University of Kent), Katharine Abernethy (University of Stirling), John Scharlemann (formerly University of Sussex), and Centre for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF) scientist Lauren Coad.

The study’s findings seek urgent action to reverse the concerning trends, according to Coad, co-author and scientist at the Nairobi-based CIFOR-ICRAF.

“Sustainable wildlife management solutions, coupled with continued long-term monitoring, are urgently needed to preserve Central Africa’s wildlife resources,” said Coad of the report whose findings were enabled by advances in data availability and accessibility.

Several organisations collaborated in the CIFOR-ICRAF-supported study, including the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Institut de Recherche en Ecologie Tropicale (IRET).

It is the first study to explore the factors that influence wild animal hunting patterns across African tropical forests in detail, and on a regional scale.

Other than hunting, wildlife trade and tracking is a major environmental and animal health concern, increasingly so in the climate change era.

With an estimated US$7-23 billion per year, wildlife tracking is the world’s fourth most profitable clandestine market after tracking in counterfeit goods, drugs and people, according to the Global Environment Facility (GEF).

The hunting and consumption of wild animals is one of the principal ways by which many zoonotic agents are transmitted to humans. The uncontrolled hunting and consumption of wild animals poses great risks to hunters and consumers alike.

The development of new urban areas and infrastructure for activities such as mining facilitates smugglers and hunters’ access to wildlife.

Deadlier encounters

Many wild animals are sold for their meat, skin, teeth (elephant tusks as ivory), rhino horns or nails, or as pets and are raised in extremely adverse and stressful conditions. They come into contact with each other and humans in uncontrolled environments, making the emergence of infectious diseases inevitable.

The research made extensive use of wildmeat.org, the largest compilation of African hunting data to date, to explore the socio-cultural, economic and landscape variables associated with wild animal hunting across 115 settlements in African tropical forests.

Through a synthesis of 83 studies published between 2001-2020, researchers found startling evidence.

Village hunters increasingly use guns instead of traditional tools (for example spears) and traps, which makes it easier to target commercially viable species. Such an increase may have a more significant negative impact on primate populations, given their high market value.

There has been a shift from subsistence hunting to commercial hunting of wild animals, which provides meat for growing urban populations. The shift is also associated with an increase in the amount of wild animal meat taken out of the landscape per hunter per day, known as hunting “offtakes”, noted the researchers.

Hunters who took the most wildlife sold a greater proportion of their catch compared to traditional hunter-gatherers who typically harvest wild meat for personal or community consumption. Also, those who took the most wildlife had better access to healthy forests, protected areas and more remote locations in easily accessible areas with degraded forests.

“Our study highlights how important it is for communities to develop robust monitoring and management frameworks for hunters and traders,” said lead author Ingram, warning that without proper monitoring of species populations and the numbers of animals hunted, the sustainability of hunting systems remains unknown.

Comparative research studies, made possible through access to large, topic-curated databases, serve as a vital resource for decision-makers, conservationists, and policymakers. Through improved clarity, these stakeholders are better equipped to design and implement strategies that conserve key ecosystems.

Meanwhile, hunters, scientists and health workers have joined forces to tackle zoonotic diseases while preserving a vital food source in Cameroon.

Writing in CIFOR-ICRAF’s Forest News, Barbara Fraser described “how Cameroon’s hunters are redefining food security – from bush meat to safe eats.”

Wild meat plays a vital role in local diets and economies in the biodiverse forests and rural communities of southern Cameroon.

“Yet this practice carries unseen dangers – zoonotic diseases that can leap from animals to humans through improper handling or consumption”.

From common food-borne pathogens like Salmonella and Giardia to rarer deadly viruses such as Ebola or Marburg, which can cause haemorrhagic, the risks are real and often overlooked.

“We aimed to understand what communities knew about the risk of becoming sick from handling wild meat and if they knew how to avoid exposure to zoonotic diseases,” said Amy Ickowitz, principal investigator in the project ‘Mitigating Risks of Disease Transmission in the Wild Meat Food Chain from Forest to Fork in Cameroon’.

Between September and November 2022, the project team embarked on a large-scale effort to understand wild meat practices in the region. They conducted focus groups, interviews and surveys involving nearly 2,400 people across 44 villages near the Dja Faunal Reserve in southern Cameroon and around Boumba National Park in eastern Cameroon. The findings revealed a stark reality and the survey results were sobering.

While hunting is a vital source of both food and income, awareness of the health risks associated with handling wild meat was alarmingly low. Fewer than 15 percent of households expressed concern about contracting diseases from infected animals.

“Only 55 per cent of respondents reported washing their hands with soap after handling wild meat and a mere 6 per cent cleaned surfaces with soap after cutting it,” Ickowitz noted.

Respectful interventions

Over half of the survey respondents admitted to cutting themselves while butchering or preparing meat, exposing themselves to potentially dangerous pathogen transmission from animal fluids. Shockingly, four out of 10 confessed to consuming or selling meat from animals that had shown clear signs of illness.

Scientists revisited the communities involved in the surveys to share their findings and discuss practical recommendations for minimising risky practices and reducing health risks. Armed with new information, local residents showed heightened interest in adopting safer practices to protect themselves and their families.

Hunters were urged to avoid contact with blood or other fluids when carrying animal carcases home after hunting, avoid handling animals found dead in the forest, and steer clear of hunting or consuming animals with visible skin lesions or other signs of illness.
They were also strongly cautioned against hunting bats or primates, species known to harbour pathogens that can easily transfer to humans. They were also encouraged to avoid feeding organ meat from wild game animals to domestic animals and to thoroughly clean work surfaces both before and after processing or cooking meat.

These measures aimed to reduce the risk of cross-contamination and spreading harmful pathogens. A collaborative “co-creation” workshop of community leaders, health workers and hunters developed practical interventions to encourage safer practices in wild meat handling.

Ickowitz attributed the positive reception largely to the project’s approach, which respected people’s need to hunt for food rather than seeking to disrupt them.

“Unlike many organisations, we didn’t ask people to stop hunting. Instead, we acknowledged the importance of wild meat in their diets and livelihoods while raising awareness about the associated risks and how to mitigate them”.

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