A rapid assessment of hunting and bushmeat trade along the roadside between five Angolan major towns

Francisco M P Gonçalves,António Valter Chisingui,Manuel J Cachissapa,José J Tchamba,José C Luís

doi:10.3897/natureconservation.37.37590

Abstract

Hunting and related bushmeat trade are activities which negatively impact wildlife worldwide, with serious implications for biodiversity conservation. Angola’s fauna was severely decimated during the long-lasting civil war following the country’s independence. During a round trip from Lubango (Huíla province), passing through the provinces of Benguela, Cuanza sul, Luanda, Bengo and finally to Uíge, we documented a variety of bushmeat trade, mainly along the roadside. This included snakes, rodents, duikers, antelopes, bush pigs, small carnivores and bird species. Despite being considered a subsistence activity for inhabitants in rural areas, it is concerning due to the increasing number of people becoming dependent on bushmeat trade for income generation and demand for bushmeat in the main cities. There is an urgent need to assess the impact of this activity on wildlife populations, in order to create alternative sources of income in rural areas and more effective policies focused on effective conservation of the rich biodiversity of Angola.

Highlights

Hunting of wild animals has been practised by humans for millions of years ago (Gaudzinski 2004)
The extraction of wildlife for subsistence and commercialisation has become a major biodiversity threat in recent decades, with over-exploitation reported to be the second most important driver of change and biodiversity loss globally (IPBES 2019). This problem is relevant for Angola, where most of the wildlife was decimated during decades of post-independence civil war, as well as in conservation areas (Huntley 2017; Daskin and Pringle 2018)
Despite the recent Ebola outbreak in the neighbouring country of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), individual animals appear to be obtained directly from hunters and slaughtered without any sanitary measure or observing a quarantine period. This observation is concerning as Uíge province shares an extensive terrestrial border with DRC and the consumption of wildlife in Africa is frequently associated with increased risk of acquiring zoonotic diseases (Ordaz-Nemeth et al 2017)

Summary

Introduction

Hunting of wild animals has been practised by humans for millions of years ago (Gaudzinski 2004). The extraction of wildlife for subsistence and commercialisation has become a major biodiversity threat in recent decades, with over-exploitation reported to be the second most important driver of change and biodiversity loss globally (IPBES 2019). This problem is relevant for Angola, where most of the wildlife was decimated during decades of post-independence civil war, as well as in conservation areas (Huntley 2017; Daskin and Pringle 2018). Freshwater fishes account for 358 species, of which 22% are endemic (Skelton 2019) and 275 species of mammals are historically recorded, with new additions from recent surveys of the upper Okavango (Cubango) catchment (Taylor et al 2018)

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