Abstract
Most bushmeat studies in the Amazon region focus on hunting patterns of indigenous populations in rural settings. Our study describes the existence of urban hunters in medium-sized towns. Using a variety of data collection methods, we describe the main socioeconomic characteristics of urban hunters in Benjamin Constant and Atalaia do Norte, Brazil. We analyze the patterns and motivations of urban hunters as well as the type of prey harvested and quantities traded. All interviewed hunters are caboclos, people of mixed Brazilian indigenous and European origins from rural areas who now live in urban and peri-urban areas. Living in these more populated spaces allows these hunters better market options for their harvest and allows them to alternate hunting with other economic activities. Only 29% of the interviewed hunters relied solely on hunting. In total, 11.6 tons of bushmeat were harvested (of which 97% was traded) by four hunters during the monitoring period (60 days). The most hunted species were terecay (Podocnemis unifilis), curassow (Crax sp.), paca (Cuniculus paca), and tapir (Tapirus terrestris). The ratio of bushmeat sold to that consumed, as well as the level of participation in the bushmeat market chain, allowed us to differentiate between specialized and diversified hunters. Specialized hunters sell 81% of the bushmeat caught to known wholesalers in the city. Diversified hunters sell 21% of their total catch to families, neighbors, or friends directly as fresh meat, avoiding intermediaries. For all hunters, hunting localities are associated with peri-urban roadways that are easily reached by motorbike or bicycle from the hunters' houses in the urban areas or city fringes. Our results show that urban hunters in medium-sized towns exemplify how traditional hunting systems can be adapted in the face of globalization, by living close to the market, at relatively manageable distances from hunting grounds, and using modern methods of transportation and communication to bypass law enforcement.
Highlights
Rapid social and economic transformations have caused a loss in the importance of forest products in rural people’s nutrition and livelihoods in the Amazon (Sills et al 2011), bushmeat continues to play an important role in the subsistence of these communities (Ojasti 2000, Bodmer and Lozano 2001, Bodmer et al 2004, Nasi et al 2011)
Most bushmeat studies in the Amazon region focus on hunting patterns of indigenous populations in rural settings
Living in the cities or peri-urban areas allows the hunters to access better market options for their harvests and to alternate hunting with other economic activities such as security guarding, transportation, carpentry, farm caretaking, and laboring in construction, which are often based on a daily wage
Summary
Rapid social and economic transformations have caused a loss in the importance of forest products in rural people’s nutrition and livelihoods in the Amazon (Sills et al 2011), bushmeat continues to play an important role in the subsistence of these communities (Ojasti 2000, Bodmer and Lozano 2001, Bodmer et al 2004, Nasi et al 2011). Migration patterns are not uni-directional, but are characterized by complex fluxes of people that result in great mobility of multilocated and multi-ethnic households affected by job availability, flooding patterns, violent displacement, and extractive booms (Alexiades 2009, Eloy and Le Tourneau 2009, Adams et al 2013, Nasuti et al 2013) These demographic changes lead to new urban-rural interconnections that translate into complex social networks of interchange (Nasuti et al 2013) and have implications in the ways that urban people connect and use the forest and, more use the wildlife
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