tagged w/ Bushmeat Trade
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"The Bushmeat Crisis" - the commercial hunting of many critically endangered species
(DRC, Africa)
GORILLA HANDS FOR SALE AT A MARKET IN THE
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO... FOR 6 US DOLLARS.
*WARNING: GRAPHIC & DISTURBING IMAGES
This slideshow includes other critically endangered species also for sale.
Some are STILL ALIVE.
Please follow link to 'Endangered Species International' (ESI) for more information & to see what you can do to help..
For the first time, ESI reveal's photos of their field monitoring using undercover methods at key markets in the republic of Congo. Their research reveals that most of illegal bushmeat sold in markets originates from one single region where primary and unprotected rainforest still remains.
ESI estimates about 300 gorillas are illegally killed each year for the bushmeat market in the city of Pointe Noire.
With your help, ESI can stop the illegal commercial hunting of endangered species in Central Africa.
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THIS IS UNEXCEPABLE!"The Bushmeat Crisis" - the commercial hunting of many critically endangered... more
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Everyday, thousands of wild animals get caught in snares across the continent to feed a rising appetite for wild meat.
War-torn countries like the Democratic Republic of Conago are going into the last frontiers and wiping out the few surviving great apes for the pot, while in Kenya, which has no war but unfortunately has unclear policies on wildlife utilisation and an increasingly poor population that sees it as an easy target, poachers set snares to catch anything from ostrich to the tiny dik dik antelope, including Kenyan endemic species such as the rare bongo or the roan antelope.
“Today, the greatest threat to wildlife after habitat loss, is the bushmeat trade,” says Iregi Mwenja, a wildlife biologist who returned recently from a bushmeat conference in Ghana.
“Statistics show that the trade is increasing by the day and we have all the reasons to make the situation worse.” He pauses for a moment and continues. “There’s poverty, landless people settled next to wildlife areas and unemployment. And they all have to eat something and the most available thing is wildlife.”
“Even though our situation is not as bad as in Tanzania or Uganda or other African countries, there’s no reason to celebrate because things are getting worse. For one, we have no national strategy on bushmeat.
“And there’s weak collaboration between the government bodies. The Ministry of Tourism probably doesn’t realise how serious the situation is and this will translate directly in tourist numbers falling as we lose our wildlife.”
In the stark heat of the mid-morning sun on the burnt out plains of Kapiti within half-an-hour’s drive from Nairobi, Kenya’s capital city, a small team of youngsters walk along the fence, stopping every few metres.
The youngsters are part of a desnaring team, volunteers with the Born Free Foundation – the animal rights group set up by the actress Virginia Mckenna and her late husband Bill Travers, the duo who starred in the 1960s epic film, Born Free.
Born Free supports wildlife conservation work across the globe such as protecting tigers in India, bears in Canada, elephants in Sri Lanka and partnering with Kenya Wildlife Service in Kenya to support its anti-poaching work.
“Bushmeat is a big thing in Kenya today,” says Alice Owen of Born Free. “Statistics show that Kenya has lost 60 per cent of its wildlife in the past 30 years. We’re the generation that’s caused the loss.”
Those not familiar with the term bushmeat will find it hard to fathom how such a cruel and illicit trade has flourished where wild animals meet a slow and painful death trapped in snares with razor-sharp claws.
There are cases of elephants having their trunks amputated to set them free from the snares and lions left to die slow and painful deaths. It’s indiscriminating.
The meat is sold for the pot and it has found its way into urban centres like Nairobi.
Unfortunately, because of no policy on the bushmeat trade, offenders are let off with a minimal fine such as the woman trader in Nairobi’s Burma market who was fined Ksh30,000 ($375) and set free.
With a ready market for bushmeat, poachers have no problem selling the “free meat” to village butcheries and the truckers who ferry containers across the continent.
Unfortunately bushmeat is dirt-cheap in Kenya, unlike West Africa where it is double the cost of the domestic meat.
A chunk of giraffe meat or a dikdik in Kenya goes for as little as Ksh 50 (62 US cents).
This low price does not reflect the true value of the natural resource, undervaluing it at the cost of the national economy. A whole chicken on the other hand, costs five to six times that.
The desnaring team, a group of 10, comprises volunteers from the Wildlife Clubs of Kenya, Kenya Wildlife Service personnel and Born Free staff.
They have been on the move since early morning, walking an average 30 kilometres a day under the hot equatorial sun, looking to collect as many snares as possible.
Alice and I join the group. Two giraffes onEveryday, thousands of wild animals get caught in snares across the continent to feed... more
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Iregi8
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added this
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2 years ago
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Baby gorilla rescued from suspected traffickers -
Undercover officers rescued a baby gorilla from suspected animal traffickers in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a national park in the country announced Tuesday.
The gorilla, thought to be about two years old, was hidden at the bottom of a bag and covered with clothes when Congolese Wildlife Authority officers arrested the suspected trafficker on Sunday, Virunga National Park said.
The gorilla, a female, was overheated and dehydrated after six hours in transit. She also had a puncture wound on her right leg, among other injuries, and is malnourished, but is responding to treatment, the park said in a statement.
It is not clear if the young gorilla's mother is alive or dead, park spokeswoman Samantha Newport said.
"You can assume that a gorilla family was attacked in order for the traffickers to obtain a baby -- but it is impossible to know if a whole family was wiped out, just a few individuals, or none at all," she said. "In most cases gorillas have to die to get a baby -- but we cannot know specifically for this case."
The animal is now being looked after by specially trained carers, Newport said.
"This is of course not an ideal replacement for a mother -- but the best option we have," she told CNN via e-mail. Carers often have some veterinary training, but are not fully fledged vets, she added.
But gorillas do not do well in situations like this, she warned.
"Gorillas, it is worth noting, are notoriously difficult to keep alive," she said. "Chimps are fighters, as are bonobos. But gorillas -- when the going gets tough -- tend to just shut down. So it really is a critical time right now to ensure she gets the veterinary attention and human warmth that she needs to get through this."
The suspect was getting off a plane from the interior of the country, near the gorillas' habitat, the park said.
One person has been charged under the country's law forbidding the destruction of flora and fauna, Newport told CNN. The park did not name the suspect.
Gorillas can fetch up to $20,000 on the black market, the head of Virunga National Park said.
"Investigations have yet to reveal where these animals are being sent and who is buying them, but on the ground sources tell us that a baby gorilla can fetch up to $20,000," said Emmanuel de Merode, the director. "We must remember that for each trafficked baby gorilla, several gorillas have probably been killed in the wild."
He led the three-month undercover operation that netted the suspect and the gorilla, the park said.
The gorilla is a lowland eastern gorilla (Gorilla beringei graueri), also known as the Grauer's Gorilla, a subspecies of Eastern Gorilla only found in the forests of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, according to the park.
Virunga National Park calls itself the oldest national park in Africa, established in 1925. It lies in a region that has been badly affected by the long-running war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The gorilla section is in a strategically important area near the borders of Rwanda and Uganda.
A ranger was killed earlier this year, and rangers lost control of a large part of the park to rebels for over a year.
But a census earlier this year suggests mountain gorillas are surviving despite poaching and war.
Officials have long said that the 250-square kilometer gorilla reserve in the southern part of Virunga National Park is where around 200 of the world's 700 mountain gorillas live.Baby gorilla rescued from suspected traffickers -
Undercover officers rescued a... more
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We are losing the battle against the growing illegal commercial trade in bushmeat because of the following;
Bushmeat is cheaper than beef; thus it is a cheaper source of protein to rural and urban poor.
Rising poverty and landlessness among communities living adjacent to wildlife rich areas worsened by the prevailing drought and food shortage in the country.
Rising incidences human wildlife conflict cases and lack compensation for such loses caused by wildlife
Weak wildlife laws that do not give deterrent fines and sentences to convicted poachers and traders.
Poor knowledge of wildlife laws leads to wildlife crimes being categorized as misdemeanour.
Weak law enforcement that allows poaching cartels to thrive.
Civil police prosecute wildlife crimes-whereas ideally it should be handled by wildlife authorities, preferably KWS prosecutors.
Serial poachers are treated as first offenders in wildlife crimes and most of them are able to pay the small fines imposed and quickly return to make easy money from the illegal trade.
Continued impasse on the wildlife policy review leading to disenchantment by communities and land owners hosting wildlife (outside the tourism circuit) making them turn a blind eye to poaching as a way of removing a pest that doesn't benefit them.
A blanket ban on consumptive use criminalized what had been part of the culture and source of food for some communities like the Kamba, Turkana, mijikenda Taita etc. They were left withour a viable alternative and hence this ban never worked for bushmeat.
As Kenyans, we need to address the issues raised above if we are to eradicate the illegal bushmeat trade in our country. The wildlife policy review offers us the best oportunity and let us not lose it.
Iregi Mwenja is a Bushmeat researcher and a USFWS MENTOR Post-graduate Fellow on Bushmeat in East AfricaWe are losing the battle against the growing illegal commercial trade in bushmeat... more
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Iregi8
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added this
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2 years ago
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Maverick conservationist, Richard Leakey, writes that "commercial bushmeat hunting has become the most significant immediate threat to the future of wildlife in Africa and around the world" in an article on Wildlife Direct. Founded by Leakey, Wildlife Direct is a nonprofit allowing researchers and wildlife organizations in Africa and Asia to connect directly with supporters through blogs.
A paper recently released by the Centre of International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and the Secretariat of the Convention on Biodiversity (CDB) argued that legalizing bushmeat trade is the only way to ensure species survival and provide protein needs to impoverished people. Leakey disagrees: "legalizing this multi-billion trade will not help the wildlife. It will instead exterminate what remains, species that we are working so hard to preserve." Leakey has spent two decades working to conserve wildlife in his native Kenya.
"CIFOR argues that since up to 80 percent of the rural households in central and western Africa already depend on bushmeat for their daily protein requirements, a blanket ban on the trade would endanger both humans and wildlife " Leakey writes. "They call for regulated but legal uptake of wildlife protein. Maybe, but just how can this be done? There are no mechanisms to regulate this even with the best legislation."
Leakey says that CIFOR and CDB's idea of legalizing the bushmeat trade "shows remarkable naïveté and totally fails to understand the realities on the ground. A hungry population is never going to practice conservation of food, especially where it can be had free from the forest."
Comparing legalizing the bushmeat trade to legalizing drugs, Leakey writes that there are other ways in which to provide poor communities with protein. "Why don't people encourage the rearing of chickens, fish or cane rats to alleviate their protein deficiency? This will bring development and a better and healthier existence."
According to Leakey a number of species that have experienced local extinctions or drastic declines due to the bushmeat trade in Africa, including elephants, chimpanzees, gorillas, pangolins, bush pigs, duikers, and monitor lizards. Numerous primate species are especially susceptible. The bushmeat trade is also a threat to many species in Asia.
Richard Leakey, son of famed anthropologist Louis Leakey, is known for his bold conservation views and his long career in politics, anthropology, and conservation in Kenya.
Maverick conservationist, Richard Leakey, writes that "commercial bushmeat... more
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