Ethnoecology, Resource Use, Conservation And Development In A ...

for several consecutive nights until the animal acquires the habit of visiting the spot.
Laba are also common crop predators, fond of corn and cassava - particularly when
scraped cassava roots are left to soak in a creek prior to making farina - and are
often killed in the course of their nocturnal raids on the farm.
During the day, laba may be driven out of their resting places, burrows in the
ground or rotten tree trunks, in which their presence is given away by their habit of
covering the entrance with dead leaves. The burrows are reported always to have two
holes, and the second is located and blocked. A trained dog may be sent down to
drive out the animal, which is killed either with a blow to the head with a cutlass,
dispensed by someone waiting by the hole, or with an arrow. In the absence of an
appropriately skilled dog, a piece of vine, palm petiole or other suitable material is cut
and pushed into the hole until it is obstructed by the animal within. The length of the
vine is used to determine the location of the animal, which is reached either by
digging or chopping the wood.
Laba, along with agouti (Dasyprocta agouti) and one species of armadillo
(Cabassous unicinctus) are also commonly hunted on the savannah during the rainy
season. All of these species are known to inhabit gallery forest along watercourses in
the savannah, and when these areas flood they are driven out to relatively small areas
of savannah on higher ground, where they may be more easily spotted by hunters. In
Maruranau, this time of year is also, and for the same reason, the main season for
hunting the savannah deer Odocoileus virginianus.
8.1.4 Hunting of Red brocket deer, Mazama americana
This species, called koshara in Wapishana, is commonly hunted in the farm area,
owing to its crop-raiding behaviour and use of fallows for feeding and resting in thick
secondary growth. Persistent visits to a farm often inspire the construction of a
wabun - a raised platform constructed of wooden poles - on which a hunter will wait
after dusk for the animal to come. They may also be shot opportunistically when
spotted in farms, or run down by dogs. Normally a dog requires some experience in
chasing koshara before they are able to catch them. If successful in their pursuit,
they will catch the deer by a leg or the neck, allowing the pursuing hunter to catch up
and kill it with arrow or cutlass. The related grey brocket deer (M. gouazoubira) is
hunted far less often. In part this is a consequence of its lower availability - it tends
to inhabit deeper forest and is not commonly associated with the farming area - but
the main reason appears to be a strong symbolically encoded prohibition on its
consumption (chapter 5.3).