‘Bushmeat’ is an African term for the meat of wild animals and is generally used to refer to all terrestrial species consumed
in tropical areas.

This encompasses a vast array of animals from cane rats to chimpanzees.

Although bushmeat harvesting is a traditional means of subsistence for forest dwelling people, demand for bushmeat from urban centres has encouraged individuals from forest adjacent communities with few income generation opportunities to hunt for profit. Mammals tend to form the greatest proportion of bushmeat harvests in Africa with three taxa predominating: primates, ungulates and rodents.

Primates (monkeys and apes) are particularly vulnerable to hunting pressures because they are medium– to large-bodied and have slow reproductive rates. In many areas primates are being hunted to dangerously low levels and local extinctions are being recorded.