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Bush meat hunting
Hunting and consumption of wild animals, so called bushmeat hunting, is a vexing problem in many tropical areas around the world. We aim to study both the ecological implications and the socio-economic drivers and consequences of bushmeat hunting. Large monkeys and apes (in our study area represented by gorillas, chimpanzees and drills) are preferred game, which is unfortunate in many respects. First of all, as they give birth to very few young per year, have long generation times, and normally low rates of mortality, these are animals that are extremely easy to drive to local extinction through hunting. The hunting mortality simply cannot be compensated for by for example increased birth rates. Secondly, the large primates provide important eco-system services, as they are the main dispersers of many trees and other plants in their forests. They eat the fruits, and carry the seeds either in their stomachs or in their hands, longer distances than any other animals in the forests. Many of these trees will not germinate if not dispersed by the primates. Without the large primates the forests will lose many of the fruiting tree species, and many of these are important both for timber and non-timber products. The non-timber products may be fruits, nuts, leafs, spices, and medicines, and these can in many cases be legally collected by people even inside protected areas. Thus, a forest without the large primates may be much less rewarding for the people living in or near these forests. In our project we will investigate how tree regeneration differs between areas of intact rainforest that are protected from hunting and areas where hunting takes place. From this information we can project the future characteristics of the forests.
Page manager: Frida Rosengren
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Publisher: Department of Biology
Last modified 15 Dec 2011
