Abstract
Bushmeat represents an important source of animal protein for humans in tropical Africa. Unsustainable bushmeat hunting is a major threat to wildlife and its consumption is associated with an increased risk of acquiring zoonotic diseases, such as Ebola virus disease (EVD). During the recent EVD outbreak in West Africa, it is likely that human dietary behavior and local attitudes toward bushmeat consumption changed in response to the crisis, and that the rate of change depended on prevailing socio-economic conditions, including wealth and education. In this study, we therefore investigated the effects of income, education, and literacy on changes in bushmeat consumption during the crisis, as well as complementary changes in daily meal frequency, food diversity and bushmeat preference. More specifically, we tested whether wealthier households with more educated household heads decreased their consumption of bushmeat during the EVD crisis, and whether their daily meal frequency and food diversity remained constant. We used Generalized Linear Mixed Models to analyze interview data from two nationwide household surveys across Liberia. We found an overall decrease in bushmeat consumption during the crisis across all income levels. However, the rate of bushmeat consumption in high-income households decreased less than in low-income households. Daily meal frequency decreased during the crisis, and the diversity of food items and preferences for bushmeat species remained constant. Our multidisciplinary approach to study the impact of EVD can be applied to assess how other disasters affect social-ecological systems and improve our understanding and the management of future crises.
Highlights
The recent Ebola virus disease (EVD, [1]) epidemic that emerged in March 2014 in West Africa [2, 3] was the largest recorded, resulting in over 28,600 cases and 11,300 deaths in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone [4]
Its consumption is linked to the transmission of zoonotic diseases, such as Ebola, and its over-harvest is a major threat to many wildlife species
Our analysis of household interview data collected during two surveys across Liberia shows that there was an overall decrease in bushmeat consumption during the recent Ebola crisis
Summary
The recent Ebola virus disease (EVD, [1]) epidemic that emerged in March 2014 in West Africa [2, 3] was the largest recorded, resulting in over 28,600 cases and 11,300 deaths in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone [4]. There are several contributing factors that caused the outbreak to rapidly expand, such as poverty [7, 8, 9] and weak medical infrastructure [8, 10], the harvest and butchering of bushmeat (i.e., wild animal meat) have been suspected as potential sources for initial spillover events in this [2, 11] and other EVD epidemics [12, 13]. In remote, impoverished, rural areas, bushmeat is often an essential source of animal protein that may contribute to food security, where livestock and fish are inaccessible [16, 17, 18] or unaffordable [19]. Urban consumers are likely to choose bushmeat from a number of interchangeable animal protein sources, and for a variety of reasons, such as its low cost, preference of taste, or perception of prestige [16, 20]. Bushmeat provides an important source of cash income for rural and forest dwellers who may depend on wildlife to alleviate periods of economic hardship (e.g. crop failures), or supplement their primary source of income, which is often agriculture [21, 22]
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