Hunting techniques and their harvest as indicators of mammal diversity and threat in Northern Angola

Nele Teutloff,Christoph Neinhuis,Thea Lautenschläger,Almeida Segredo Cabalo,Paulina Meller,Guedes José Ramiro,Manfred Finckh

doi:10.1007/s10344-021-01541-y

Nele Teutloff, Christoph Neinhuis + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10344-021-01541-y

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Abstract

Over-exploitation of wildlife especially bushmeat trade is the second most important threat to animal biodiversity. This also applies to Northern Angola but data on bushmeat and hunting techniques for this region are rare. Therefore, we study the most common hunting techniques, frequently captured species, and their economic value, and discuss the local resource use in relation to Angolan law and urgent global crises like the loss of biodiversity, the food supply in South African countries, and the risk of zoonoses. We recorded bushmeat hunting in 27 localities in the province of Uíge, accompanied hunters along their snare lines and interviewed additional 20 locals. Seven main types of snares and traps and their characteristics were defined. Hunters own on average 92 ± 128.7 snares and traps and capture about 25.3 ± 23.6 animals monthly. In total, respondents recognized 28 species of mammals of which one is considered as extinct and two as very rare. The majority of recorded species are hunted regularly. Rodents are most commonly caught followed by primates and duikers. Harvesting rates decrease with species’ body size, leading to high economic value of and achievable prices for rare, large animals. Overall, our results document the hunting pressure on mammals and the persisting popularity of bushmeat in Northern Angola which poses an imminent threat to remaining mammal populations. Moreover, it endangers ecosystem integrity, rural livelihoods, and human health through the risk of new zoonoses. Our findings underscore the urgent need for sustainable solutions. The Angolan government should play a more active role in enforcing existing hunting legislation to reduce illegal bushmeat trade.

Highlights

Bushmeat is defined as meat from wild animals and its consumption has probably accompanied human evolution for over 6 million years (Bahuchet 1993; Stanford and Bunn 2001)
Most Angolans do not live in forests, the consumption of bushmeat is widespread and it supplies city dwellers
According to the more recent classification of ecoregions by Burgess et al (2004), used by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) (Dinerstein et al 2017), the province of Uíge belongs to the ecoregion ‘Western Congolian Forest-Savannah Mosaic’, a mixture of tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannahs, shrublands and woodlands (Olson et al 2001; Burgess et al 2004)

Summary

Introduction

Bushmeat is defined as meat from wild animals and its consumption has probably accompanied human evolution for over 6 million years (Bahuchet 1993; Stanford and Bunn 2001). IPBES (2019) reported that over-exploitation of wildlife is the second most important driver of biodiversity loss globally. These concerns are relevant for a tropical country like Angola in Southwest-Central Africa, where decades of postindependence civil war have considerably decimated wildlife (Huntley 2017; Daskin and Pringle 2018). The largest outbreak of Marburg Fever ever reported globally caused 227victims in the Angolan province of Uíge in 2004/05 (Ndayimirije and Kindhauser 2005). The increasing loss of biodiversity and the global SARS-CoV-2 pandemic calls for a more complete picture of hunting and its consequences. For this reason, research in less described areas is essential. Our general aim is to describe dimensions of local resource use which lie at the root of urgent global crises against the background of the Angolan hunting legislation

Materials and methods

Methods

A: Spring-Loaded Bar Mousetrap

B: Simple Cable Snares

Discussion