(Fruit bats stewing for dinner pictured above)
Bushmeat Hunting
Since 2004, our team has been studying the social, economic and geographic drivers of bushmeat (any wildlife used for food) consumption in northeastern Madagascar (the Maroantsetra area). Local people are hunting a variety of mammal species including lemurs, carnivores, bats, bush pigs and tenrecs. We also have done some preliminary modeling of the sustainability of current hunting practices on this array of wildlife and found that much of it is unsustainable. Lemurs and carnivores, because of their slow reproductive life history strategies, are particularly susceptible to unsustainable hunting. We also conduct studies of taste preferences and although many domesticated animals are preferred, delicious species like the black and white ruffed lemur (Varecia variegata) are preferred over other types of meat. Almost all of the hunting in the Maroantsetra region (and in fact much of Madagascar) is subsistence by nature, but there are still occasional restaurants which serve bushmeat.
(Restaurant menu offering "trandraka" (tenrecs) and "lambodia" (bushpig).
Since 2004, our team has been studying the social, economic and geographic drivers of bushmeat (any wildlife used for food) consumption in northeastern Madagascar (the Maroantsetra area). Local people are hunting a variety of mammal species including lemurs, carnivores, bats, bush pigs and tenrecs. We also have done some preliminary modeling of the sustainability of current hunting practices on this array of wildlife and found that much of it is unsustainable. Lemurs and carnivores, because of their slow reproductive life history strategies, are particularly susceptible to unsustainable hunting. We also conduct studies of taste preferences and although many domesticated animals are preferred, delicious species like the black and white ruffed lemur (Varecia variegata) are preferred over other types of meat. Almost all of the hunting in the Maroantsetra region (and in fact much of Madagascar) is subsistence by nature, but there are still occasional restaurants which serve bushmeat.
(Restaurant menu offering "trandraka" (tenrecs) and "lambodia" (bushpig).
