Recipes for Survival_English_tcm46-28192

WSPA/APE ALLIANCERECIPES FOR SURVIVALstill be profitable, because small-bodied species will remain common (Fa et al, 2001).The opportunistic nature of hunting keeps pressure on large animals high andaccelerates their extinction (Barnes, 2002; Wilkie and Carpenter, 1999).The vulnerability of a species to hunting is, therefore, a product of biologicalcharacteristics, including size, growth rate and reproductive biology, as well asdemographic factors, including population density, distribution and habitat specificity.3.4.3 Geographic repercussionsHunting of wild animals for meat is not just an African problem. Twenty-five tonnes of turtlesare exported every week from Sumatra, Indonesia, 1,500 forest rats are sold per week in aSulawesi market and 28,000 primates are hunted annually in Loreto, Peru (Milner-Gulland etal, 2003). Referring to wild meat rather than bushmeat reflects the global nature of thisissue. Preliminary research presented in Appendix 1 suggests that 27% of Latin Americanmammals, 50% of Asian mammals and 50% of African mammals recorded amongstbushmeat harvests are categorised as endangered or vulnerable to extinction.The status of many forest species is difficult to determine by traditional censustechniques (Ray, Stein & BCTF, 2002). Annual variations mean that accurate estimatescan be made only by several surveys over consecutive years (Barnes, 2002).Table 2:Composition ofbushmeatcaptured in theCongo Basin(Source: Wilkie &Carpenter, 1999)Species loss occurred in Asia first. Many species have been hunted to extinction,including 12 species of mammal in Vietnam since 1975 (Whitfield, 2003). Bushmeatis still consumed in large quantities throughout Asia (Kümpel, 2005). In Indonesia, thetrade in babirusa is purely commercial, with no subsistence motivation at all (Milner-Gulland & Clayton, 2002).In Central Africa, hunting pressure has been specifically identified as a threat to 84Location Ungulates a Primates Rodents OtherInturi forest, DRC 1 60 – 95% 5 – 40% 1% 1%Makokou, Gabon 2 58% 19% 14% 9%Diba, Congo 3 70% 17% 9% 4%Ekom, Cameroon 4 85% 4% 6% 5%Brazzaville, Congo 13 76% 8% 6% 10%Ouesso, Congo 5 57% 34% 5% 4%Ndoki and Ngatongo, Congo 6 81 – 87% 11 – 16% 2 – 3% 2 – 3%Dzanga-Sangha, CAR 7 77 – 86% 0% 11 – 12% 2 – 12%Libreville, Port Gentil, Oyem, and Makokou, Gabon 8 34 – 61% 20 – 45% 5 – 27% 3 – 12%Bioko and Rio Muni, Equatorial Guinea 9 36 – 43% 23 – 25% 31 – 37% 2 – 4%Dja, Cameroon 12 88% 3% 5% 4%Ekom, Cameroon 10 87% 1% 6% 6%Oleme, Congo 11 62% 38%THE BROADER BUSHMEAT ISSUESpecies Hunted individuals/km 2 Unhunted individuals/km 2 ImpactCephalophus sylvicultur 0 0.03 -100%Gorilla gorilla 0 0.24 -100%Cercocebus albigena 2.5 51.2 -95%Pan troglodytes 0.03 0.36 -92%Cephalophus callipygus 0.6 6.7 -91%Clolbus abyssinicus 0.8 6.8 -88%Tragelaphus spekei 0.005 0.03 -83%Potamochoerus porcus 0.36 1.7 -79%Hyemoschus aquaticus 0.02 0.09 -78%Cercopithecus nictitans 21.9 80.2 -73%Cephalophus dorsalis 2.5 5.8 -57%Cercopithecus pogonias 11.1 19.8 -44%Cercopithecus cephus 12.5 22 -43%Cephalophus monticola 30.4 53 -43%mammalian species and subspecies (IUCN, 2000) (see Tables 2 and 3). Thirty-fourspecies are listed as threatened by extinction, the majority of which are primates (17),and the rest duikers (12), carnivores (4) and rodents (1) (CITES, 2004). Localextinctions have been recorded in populations of leopard Panthera pardus, golden catProfelis aurata and elephant Loxodonta africana, with similar declines expected forgiant pangolins Smutsia gigantaea and slender-snouted crocodiles Crocodyluscataphractus (various authors cited by Bowen-Jones & Pendry, 1999).Commercial bushmeat hunting in West Africa has already caused local extinctions(BCTF, 2000a).Table 3:Bushmeat speciesdensities in huntedand unhuntedforest in theCongo Basin(Source: Wilkie &Carpenter, 1999)Kenya provides a model for East Africa, where wildlife populations have declined by58% over the past 20 years and the scale of hunting appears to be escalating (BornFree, 2004). Decreasing wildlife populations have intensified hunting effort,necessitating more sophisticated and unsustainable methods, such as night torchhunting (Barnett, 2000).According to a recent comparative study of 57 and 31 mammalian taxa in the Congoand Amazon Basins respectively, 60% of Congo animals were exploited unsustainably,compared with no Amazon species (Fa et al, 2002). This research also showed that Congomammals must annually produce 93% of their body mass to balance extraction rates,whereas Amazon species need only produce 4%. Conversely, studies in 25 Amazonianforest sites showed that even small-scale subsistence hunting reduced the number oflarge-bodied game species (Peres, 2000). Milner-Gulland et al (2003) assert that we canexpect extinctions in even the remote areas of Latin America in the next 10 – 20 years.37WSPA/APE ALLIANCE36