BCTF is a consortium of conservation organizations and scientists dedicated to the conservation of wildlife populations threatened by commercial hunting for sale as meat. LEARN MORE >>
What is Bushmeat? In Africa, forest is often referred to as 'the bush', thus wildlife and the meat derived from it is referred to as 'bushmeat.’
What is the Crisis? Commercial, illegal and unsustainable hunting for the meat of wild animals is causing widespread local extinctions in Asia and West Africa. It is a crisis because of rapid expansion to countries and species which were previously not at risk, largely due to an increase in commercial logging, with an infrastructure of roads and trucks that links forests and hunters to cities and consumers. LEARN MORE >>
Asian Species Fact Sheets available for downloading
French Fact Sheets are now available
The Bushmeat Trade in Africa: Conflict, Consensus and Collaboration
August 20, 2008 - Law enforcement officials investigating the source of confiscated ivory (605 elephant tusks) in Hong Kong had no clue where the stash originated before leaving Douala, a port city in Cameroon. DNA technology, however, was able to verify that many of the tusks once belonged to forest elephants that lived in southern Gabon, near the Republic of Congo border. Extracting elephant DNA from confiscated ivory could be an important tool to take wildlife investigations a step farther and to stop poaching at its source. Such expensive forensic work may become necessary to protect dwindling elephant populations and curb the illegal ivory market before it grows completely out of control. "In big seizures, there's a very strong tendency to ship ivory out of a different country than where it's poached... It's a bit of a red herring," said Samuel Wasser, director of the University of Washington's Center for Conservation Biology and the lead author of the study, published in this month's issue of Conservation Biology (Full report available). "The methods we developed are very important in that regard because it focuses where the poaching is ongoing." READ MORE >>
August 28, 2008 - Conservationists have discovered "surprisingly large populations" of two globally threatened primates in a protected area in Cambodia. Surveys by scientists with the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Cambodian government counted 42,000 black-shanked douc langurs and 2,500 yellow-cheeked crested gibbons in Cambodia's Seima Biodiversity Conservation Area. The estimate represents the largest known populations for both species in the world, according to a report released by the conservation group. READ MORE >>
July 2008 - This report by Katherine Scholfield, Newcastle University, and Dan Brockington, University of Manchester, examines the geography of activities by about 280 conservation NGOs working in Sub-Saharan Africa. The authors looked at where NGOs work, where they are based, what protected areas they cover, how much money they get and where they spend it. They also examine the challenges of increasing conservation funding. READ MORE >>
July 05, 2007 - BCTF Director Dr. Heather E. Eves was one of several experts consulted for two stories on bushmeat, now available on Current TV. In the first story, journalist Mara Schiavocampo travels to the Democratic Republic of Congo to examine the bushmeat trade, conducting interviews with hunters, cooks, market sellers and conservation experts. The second story focuses on smuggling bushmeat into the US, and law enforcement. READ MORE >>