Commercial logging in Central and West Africa opens up roads and access to commercial hunters and can lead to wildlife populations’ decline.

Crocodiles and other reptiles are also affected by the bushmeat crisis. Often captured and transported live, crocodiles can suffer a great deal before they are butchered.

(c) B Curran

Humans share much of our DNA with great apes and monkeys like this black and white colobus. Bushmeat hunting exposes humans to diseases carried by non-human primates, and vice versa.

(c) Ruggiero

Young chimpanzees, gorillas and bonobos are often orphaned by the bushmeat trade, when their parents are killed for their meat.

(c.) D. Siddle

While most people are aware that elephants are poached for their ivory, many do not know that elephants are also a part of the bushmeat crisis. One elephant yields thousands of kilos of meat, which may be easier to sell in markets than elephant ivory.

Bushmeat for sale in Yaounde, Cameroon. Clockwise from top-left: civet, dwarf crocodile, tortoises, monkey, and duiker (smoked and dried). The crocodile and tortoises were still alive at the time of the photo. © Andrew Tobiason /BCTF.

Bushmeat training programs help build the capacity of wildlife and protected area managers dealing with the bushmeat crisis every day.

Bryan Curran

copyright - RG Ruggiero