Bushmeat
Bushmeat initially referred to the hunting of wild animals in West and Central Africa and is a calque from the French viande de brousse. Today the term is commonly used for meat of terrestrial wild animals, killed for subsistence or commercial purposes throughout the humid tropics of the Americas, Asia, and Africa.
To reflect the global nature of hunting of wild animals Resolution 2.64 of the IUCN General Assembly in Amman in October 2000 referred to wild meat rather than bushmeat. A more worldwide term is game. The term bushmeat crisis tends to be used to describe unsustainable hunting of often endangered wildlife in West and Central Africa and the humid tropics, depending on interpretation. African hunting predates recorded history; by the 21st century it had become an international issue.
Many conservation organizations have come together to address the bushmeat crisis through the formation of the Bushmeat Crisis Task Force, whose mission is to build a public, professional and government constituency aimed at identifying and supporting solutions that effectively respond to the bushmeat crisis in Africa and around the world.
Many conservation organizations have come together to address the bushmeat crisis through the formation of the Bushmeat Crisis Task Force, whose mission is to build a public, professional and government constituency aimed at identifying and supporting solutions that effectively respond to the bushmeat crisis in Africa and around the world.
"Crocodiles like this one have the misfortune of being transported alive in this tied condition. Fresh meat earns a higher price than smoked meat at the bush-meat market." - Conservationist and photographer Karl Ammann - Source: National Geographic
Bushmeat-stew. Source: National Geographic
Picture source: UNEP
Great apes are being hunted to extinction
Great apes -- gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos -- are being hunted to extinction for commercial bushmeat in the equatorial forests of west and central Africa.
A ragged far flung army of a few thousand commercial bushmeat hunters supported by the timber industry infrastructure will illegally shoot and butcher more than two billion dollars worth of wildlife this year, including as many as 8,000 endangered great apes.
People pay a premium to eat more great apes each year than are now kept in all the zoos and laboratories of the world.
If the slaughter continues at its current pace, the remaining wild apes in Africa will be gone within the next fifteen to fifty years. With them will vanish most of the equatorial rain forest, and the cultures of indigenous people who have lived there for millennia.
Source: The Bushmeat Project
Nona's story
Nona's mother was killed for meat. Nona was clinging to her mother and was shot through her hand...she was left for dead by the hunters, too little meat on her tiny body for them to be interested.
Ape Action Africa was called to help her and their manager, Rachel Hogan, went to the logging camp to rescue her. Rachel thought she was dead until she screamed.
After many months of 24/7 care, Nona has fully recovered from her injuries and her traumatic start in life. She now enjoys her days with 10 other gorillas in Mefou National Park in Cameroon, in the care of Ape Action Africa.
See video here of reporter Evan Williams' trip into the forest with a Baka hunter who explains how
and why he kills gorilla
and why he kills gorilla
The bushmeat trade:
increased opportunities for transmission of zoonotic diseases
The bushmeat trade is an example of an anthropogenic factor that provides opportunities for the transmission of diseases from wildlife to humans. The expansion of the bushmeat trade over the past 2 decades has provided a venue for the emergence of zoonotic diseases by providing an increased opportunity for the transmission of organisms known to cause disease and organisms with an unknown impact on human.
Meat pile
Bushmeat, health and conservation impacts
by Natalie Bailey, BCTF
In Africa and around the world, policy makers, NGOs and the public are increasingly focusing attention on the threat that zoonotic (cross species) disease transmission poses to human health. Global transportation of people, wildlife and livestock, combined with increasing opportunities for cross-species disease transmission has already resulted in the global emergence of diseases such as SARS, monkeypox, Ebola and HIV/AIDS. Evidence that HIV/AIDS arose from the transfer of chimpanzee-borne SIV (simian immunodeficiency virus) to humans, probably through blood-to-blood contact during the hunting and butchering of bushmeat was first published in 1999 (Gao et al. 1999). More recently, Ebola, monkeypox and SARS outbreaks have demonstrated the ease with which humans can contract and spread certain wildlife diseases, particularly those of non-human primates.
Two major factors are at play in the spread of emerging infectious diseases. First, demand for bushmeat in Africa, Asia and other parts of the world have increased the number of hunters and traders as well as both meat and live animal markets. In markets, viruses have millions of opportunities to cross over to other species and can potentially recombine into new viral strains (WCS 2003). Second, global air transportation allows for rapid movement of infected individuals (whether animal or human), which may contribute to the rapid spread of diseases. The SARS outbreak of 2003 is a vivid example of a disease that jumped across species borders into humans and was rapidly spread around the world, infecting individuals from approximately 30 countries. A monkeypox outbreak in the U.S. in 2003 demonstrated the risks of importation of live wildlife into the U.S. when prairie dogs housed with imported monkeypox-carrying African rats spread the disease to exotic pet owners.
HIV/AIDS
Researchers seeking information on the origins of HIV/AIDS have demonstrated compelling evidence that bushmeat hunting and preparation may have introduced SIVcpz into human populations (Gao et al. 1999). Published in the same month that the Bushmeat Crisis Task Force was formed, this paper demonstrated that Pan troglodytes troglodytes (central chimpanzee) was the primary reservoir of HIV1 and that the species had been the source of at least three independent introductions of SIVcpz into the human population. In this and subsequent papers, authors noted that the prevalence of the bushmeat trade and the blood-to-blood contact common in hunting and preparation of bushmeat may provide opportunities for future crossover events from chimpanzees and other primates (Gao et al. 1999, Hahn et al. 2000, Wolfe et al. 2000, Daszak et al. 2000, Peeters et al. 2002, Wolfe et al.2004). At least 18 different primate SIVs have been found in at least 26 different primate species, putting humans who hunt and prepare primate bushmeat at risk for numerous genetically divergent viruses (Hahn et al. 2000, Peeters et al. 2002). Opportunities for recombination of similar retroviruses (including the newly-identified human infection of simian foamy virus, or SFV) indicate an even greater potential global health challenge (Wolfe et al.2004).
Ebola
Ebola is a rapidly spreading, devastating disease that affects both human and primate populations. Hemorrhagic fevers such as Ebola can result in high mortality as they spread through dense areas. On several occasions, Ebola outbreaks have been first observed in apes, only to infect humans when infected apes are hunted or found dead in the forest, and later consumed. The 2002 Ebola outbreak in Republic of Congo and Gabon was explicitly linked to bushmeat consumption; as a result, the Government of Gabon began strictly enforcing bans on bushmeat hunting (Lawson 2002). Ebola outbreaks have occurred at least eight times in various African countries since 1994; five outbreaks involving eight different viral strains occurred in Gabon and Republic of Congo since 2001, with each human outbreak linked to the handling of a dead animal (gorilla, chimpanzee or duiker) (Leroy et al. 2004).
Ebola outbreaks are catastrophic to apes as well as to humans. Both bushmeat hunting and Ebola outbreaks have contributed to a 50% decline in ape populations in Gabon since 1983 (Walsh et al. 2003). In addition, researchers have found indicators that gorilla, chimpanzee and duiker populations may have declined by as much as 50-88% during a 2003 outbreak in the Lossi Reserve, Republic of Congo (Leroy et al. 2004). In response, veterinarians, human health agencies and conservationists are making urgent calls for control of bushmeat hunting, health education and wildlife monitoring.
Actions Addressing Global Disease Risks
More recently, the global outbreak of SARS and the emergence of monkeypox in the Midwestern region of the U.S. have raised further concerns from health professionals and conservationists regarding the demand for and global transportation of wildlife. SARS has been linked to burgeoning wildlife markets in China, where demand for masked palm civets and other species of wildlife has increased with the growing population (Bhattacharya and MacKenzie 2003). In a matter of just a few weeks, the disease had flown around the world on commercial airliners. The monkeypox case demonstrated the many ways that a disease could be transmitted, as it moved from imported African giant rats to prairie dogs to humans (CDC 2003).
Within the BCTF network, government agencies and NGOs are working together to focus on the importance of collaboration across sectors (conservation, human health professionals, wildlife veterinarians, policy makers, etc.) to encourage integrated decision-making, public awareness, fundraising and action regarding the bushmeat trade and emerging diseases. A recent meeting jointly held with the Africa Biodiversity Collaborative Group (ABCG) and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) brought together representatives of each of these sectors to discuss solutions to these issues, with bushmeat as a major focus of the meeting. Further information will be posted to the BCTF website as developments continue.
Source including references: www.bushmeat.org
Red-eared guenons (with red tails) and Preuss' guenons for sale in bushmeat market Malabo, Equatorial Guinea.
A worldwide trade
While most of the game feeds subsistence villagers and urban dwellers, bushmeat is also finding its way to ethnic restaurants in Europe and even to the United States.
Federal inspectors in August (2000) seized luggage from a Ghana Airways flight arriving at New York's Kennedy Airport and found the smoked limbs and torsos of 60 red, white, and black colobus monkeys, apparently bound for a meat market near Yankee Stadium.
Soon after that gruesome discovery, the Wildlife Conservation Society announced that after a seven-year search one variety of red colobus monkey native to Ghana and the Ivory Coast had been declared extinct, only the second permanent loss of a primate since the early 1700s.
Unsustainable hunting and habitat fragmented by logging are blamed for the extinction of Miss Waldron's red colobus and for dramatic reductions in populations of Asia's orangutans and Africa's gorillas and chimpanzees.
Source
Federal inspectors in August (2000) seized luggage from a Ghana Airways flight arriving at New York's Kennedy Airport and found the smoked limbs and torsos of 60 red, white, and black colobus monkeys, apparently bound for a meat market near Yankee Stadium.
Soon after that gruesome discovery, the Wildlife Conservation Society announced that after a seven-year search one variety of red colobus monkey native to Ghana and the Ivory Coast had been declared extinct, only the second permanent loss of a primate since the early 1700s.
Unsustainable hunting and habitat fragmented by logging are blamed for the extinction of Miss Waldron's red colobus and for dramatic reductions in populations of Asia's orangutans and Africa's gorillas and chimpanzees.
Source
Bushmeat baby
Herpes, HIV viruses enter USA via smuggled African bushmeat
NEW YORK, New York, January 10, 2012 (ENS) - Evidence of retroviruses and herpes viruses in illegally imported wildlife meat products confiscated at U.S. international airports has been found using new technology known as DNA barcoding. This method uses a short genetic marker in an organism's DNA to identify it as belonging to a particular species.
DNA barcoding revealed the species of butchered African animals seized at five U.S. airports during a study that aims to establish methods of determining the public health risks from wildlife products being smuggled into the United States.
Some of the seized meat was from endangered and threatened chimpanzees, baboons and monkeys and some was infected with the herpes virus and the HIV-related simian foamy virus.
Dr. Kristine Smith, lead author of the study and associate director for health and policy at EcoHealth Alliance, said, "Although the findings to date are from a small pilot study, they remind us of the potential public health risk posed by illegal importation of wildlife products - a risk we hope to better characterize through expanded surveillance at ports of entry around the country."
The study's findings were detailed in an article published today in the journal "PLoS ONE" entitled, "Zoonotic Viruses Associated with Illegally Imported Wildlife Products."
Eight postal shipments confiscated by U.S. Customs officials at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York from October 2008 to September 2010 were included in this study.
From June 2010 to September 2010, an additional 20 passenger-carried packages confiscated at four other airports - Philadelphia, Washington Dulles, George Bush Intercontinental-Houston, and Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International - were sampled for the study.
Samples from approximately 44 animals were included in the study.
Confiscated items included raw to semi-cooked animal parts, identified by American Museum of Natural History's Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics, Columbia University, and the Wildlife Conservation Society as nonhuman primates, including baboon, chimpanzee, mangabey, guenon and green monkey, as well as cane rat and rat.
Pathogen analysis was conducted at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention and also at Columbia University's Center for Infection and Immunity.
Among the pathogens identified in the products were a zoonotic retrovirus, simian foamy viruses, and several nonhuman primate herpes viruses.
These results are the first to confirm evidence of pathogens in illegally imported bushmeat that may act as a conduit for pathogen spread, and suggest that implementation of disease surveillance of the illegal wildlife trade will help prevent disease emergence.
"The increase in international travel and trade brings with it an increased risk of unmonitored pathogens via the illegal wildlife trade," said Dr. Denise McAloose, chief pathologist for the Global Health Program of the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Scientists say nearly 75 percent of emerging infectious diseases in humans originate in animals and the majority originate in wildlife, such as the 2003 SARS outbreak, which was traced to Chinese restaurant workers butchering the cat-like masked palm civet.
"Exotic wildlife pets and bushmeat are Trojan horses that threaten humankind at sites where they are collected in the developing world as well as the U.S. Our study underscores the importance of surveillance at ports, but we must also encourage efforts to reduce demand for products that drive the wildlife trade," said W. Ian Lipkin of Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.
The United States is one of the largest consumers of imported wildlife products and wildlife. A previous study by EcoHealth Alliance showed that from 2000-2006 approximately 1.5 billion live wild animals were legally imported into the country, with 90 percent slated for the pet trade.
"It is surely large but the true size of the illegal wildlife trade remains a mere guess given the covert nature of the business," said DNA barcoding expert Dr. George Amato, director of the American Museum on Natural History's Center for Conservation Genetics. "While the threat this trade poses to conservation is cause enough for alarm, the intermingling of wildlife, domestic animals and people is a clear threat also to human heath everywhere."
"Using DNA barcoding to identify species being smuggled at border points is one of the tools needed to address this law-enforcement challenge," Amato said.
Europe also receives a great deal of smuggled bushmeat. A 2010 study estimated that each week five tons of bushmeat is smuggled in personal luggage into Paris Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport via Air France. Researchers from the UK, France and Cambodia identified 12 species among the seized meat products, much of it dressed and smoked.
Support of detective work at borders is part of an explosion of new applications and discoveries arising from DNA barcoding technology.
The ability to identify and distinguish known and unknown species ever more quickly, cheaply, easily and accurately based on snippets of DNA code grew from a 2003 research paper to a burgeoning global enterprise today, led by the Consortium for the Barcode of Life at the Smithsonian Institution. Some 1.4 million DNA records are now banked, representing more than 115,000 species.
Source: Environment News Service
Examples of smuggled simian bushmeat (a) skull, (b) hand, (c) skull and torso, and (d) arm. Ruler units are centimeters
