Temporal evolution of bushmeat traded in High Niger National Park, Guinea, West Africa L UCIE D UONAMOU,ALEXANDRE K ONATE,JILIANG X U and T ATYANA H UMLE Abstract The High Niger National Park is one of the most Introduction important protected areas for biodiversity conservation in Guinea. This study examined the temporal evolution of the unting, which was once considered a subsistence and bushmeat trade in three rural markets in the Park and in Htraditional activity supplying protein resources for the nearest urban centre, Faranah. We collected data in mar- rural populations in West Africa, has become an important kets during August–November in three villages around commercial activity (Bowen-Jones, ). Bushmeat hunting the Mafou core area of the Park and in Faranah, and com- is pervasive across West Africa and is one of the main threats pared these data with equivalent published data from the to mammal populations in the region (Fa et al., , ; same rural areas in and and from Faranah in Lindsey et al., ; Humle & Konate, ; Ripple et al., , , and . Across all study periods, mammals ). Unsustainable hunting practices are affecting c. % predominated in the bushmeat trade. In rural markets we of wildlife species in West and Central Africa, and are direct- noted a marked increase in the number of carcasses and bio- ly affecting c. mammalian species (Bowen-Jones, ). ’ mass offered for sale from onwards, whereas in Faranah Depletion of wildlife is increasingly affecting people s well- there were no differences over time other than a peak in . being and access to sources of protein and revenue, especially Overall, there was an increase in the sale of smaller sized in rural areas (Nasi et al., ). To date most bushmeat stud- species (, kg), and a marked increase in the sale of species ies have been carried out in forested areas (van Velden et al., that forage on crops, including the green monkey Chloroce- ); few have focused on savannah-dominated ecosystems ’ bus sabaeus and warthog Phacochoerus africanus,inspiteof in West Africa, especially within Guinea s dry forest systems religious taboos against the consumption of primates and (Lindsey et al., ). It is critical to gather knowledge from Suidae. Green monkeys were not sold in markets during the such landscapes, to better understand the impact of hunting s but were the dominant species in Faranah in and on wildlife and wildlife depletion on ecosystem integrity, as ’ . Our findings suggest a marked shift in traded species, well as on people s livelihoods and well-being in less forested associated with crop protection by farmers and economic in- and more arid regions of sub-Saharan Africa. centives to kill and trade crop-foraging species. This study Studies in Africa generally suggest that urban demand is highlights the value of a longitudinal perspective for investi- a major driver of the bushmeat trade (Brashares et al., ; gating the dynamic relationship between local livelihoods Fa et al., ). However, other factors such as poverty and and biodiversity conservation. human population growth also influence this trade (Lindsey et al., ;Pimmetal.,; Ripple et al., ). Farmers in Keywords Bushmeat trade, crop-protection, Guinea, High many regions also practice lethal wildlife control using snares Niger National Park, human–wildlife conflict, hunting, and, increasingly, shotguns, to protect their crops, although it market surveys, primate conservation remains unclear to what extent such mitigation strategies fuel Supplementary material for this article is available at the bushmeat trade (Alexander et al., ;Humle&Konate, doi.org/./S ). Such practices often target rodent, primate and Suidae species, which are amongst the most common crop-foraging species in Africa (Brooks et al., ;McNamaraetal.,; Garriga et al., ). In West Africa, primates account for –% of carcasses recorded in bushmeat markets (Davies LUCIE DUONAMOU ( orcid.org/0000-0002-6912-5923) School of Nature &Brown,). Wildlife authorities in Uganda have declared Conservation, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China baboons Papio sp., the vervet monkey Chlorocebus pygery- ALEXANDRE KONATE ( orcid.org/0000-0003-4896-8929) Institute Superior of Agronomy and Veterinary of Faranah, Faranah, Guinea thrus and red river hog Potamochoerus porcus to be vermin and farmers can therefore hunt these species to reduce dam- JILIANG XU (Corresponding author, orcid.org/0000-0002-2542-6441) School of Nature Conservation, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, 35 ages and losses to their crops (Naughton-Treves et al., ). Qinghua East Road, Haidian District, China. E-mail [email protected] Bushmeat consumption studies in Lalehum near the Gola TATYANA HUMLE (Corresponding author, orcid.org/0000-0002-1919-631X) North Forest Reserve in Sierra Leone showed that the greater Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology School of Anthropology and cane rat Thryonomys swinderianus was more frequently killed Conservation, Marlowe Building, University of Kent, Canterbury CT2 7NR, UK E-mail [email protected] and consumed during the so-called hungry season, when rice Received May . Revision requested September . is growing, whereas duikers were hunted and consumed Accepted December . First published online September . more during the dry season (Davies & Brown, ). Although This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, Downloadeddistribution, from https://www.cambridge.org/core and reproduction in any medium,. IP address: provided 170.106.33.22 the original work, onis 02 properly Oct 2021 cited. at 17:10:01, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/termsOryx, 2021, 55(5), 717–724 ©. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605319001443The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605319001443 718 L. Duonamou et al. hunting is an important source of income for many rural Kouroussa, Dabola and Faranah (Brugière et al., ). populations in Africa (Wilkie et al., ), some species are Circa , people live around the Park, with , of buffered from such practices as they are not hunted because these in the Mafou area near the urban centre of Faranah, of their cultural value, or because of religious beliefs (Reuter dominated by Malinke people, who are Muslim (Brugière et al., ; MacCarthy, ). For example, in the sin et al., ). Islam as practised in the region traditionally Lalehum in Sierra Leone, the western chimpanzee Pan troglo- prohibits the consumption of Suidae and primate species dytes verus was the species most commonly cited as taboo to (Mbotiji, ). Mean annual rainfall is ,–, mm eat and was not hunted for meat (Davies & Brown, ). and mean monthly temperature – °C, with a maxi- High Niger National Park is one of the last remaining dry mum of °C at the end of the dry season in April–May forest–savannah mosaics in West Africa, and is a priority site (Fleury-Brugière & Brugière, ; Ziegler et al., ). for the conservation of ungulates and the western chimpanzee Agricultural activities in the region are concentrated within (Fleury-Brugière & Brugière, ;Kormosetal.,). In the Park’s buffer zones. Rice, maize, peanuts and cassava are Guinea, subsistence hunting of wildlife requires a permit the dominant crops and most people are engaged in farm- and so, in theory, offtake could be regulated and sustainable ing. The Park has two core areas, where human settlement (Saïdou & Djellouli, ). Nevertheless, many protected or activity are strictly prohibited, and two buffer zones areas across West and Central Africa, including in Guinea, (c. , km ) that vary in the degree to which local people are affected by human activities such as hunting, agricul- are permitted to harvest and utilize resources. The two ture and mining, and these activities remain poorly regulated strictly protected core areas are Mafou ( km ) and (Brugière & Magassouba, ). National statistics on the Kouya ( km ), separated by km (Brugière et al., bushmeat trade are not available for Guinea, but local-scale ). We focused our study on the Mafou sector, which studies have indicated that bushmeat is the main source of has benefitted from most protection efforts since . animal protein for rural people, as in many other African A collaboration between the Chimpanzee Conservation countries (Humle & Konate, ). Commercial hunting for Center, the Park authorities and the United Nations bushmeat is a serious threat to animal species across many Office for Project Services has facilitated the deployment protected areas as a result of a lack of law enforcement and of trained ecoguards in and around the Mafou core area unsustainable hunting practices. The failure to comply with (Fig. ). The Park harbours c. % of all known mammal hunting periods recommended by law and poor respect for species in Guinea (Ziegler et al., ; Brugière & the prohibition of hunting in strictly protected core areas Magassouba, ), including the Vulnerable lion Pan- therefore threaten the sustainability of wildlife resources thera leo and Critically Endangered western chimpanzee (Dia, ). (Kamyk, ; Humle et al., ). There were studies of bushmeat use in the Park during – (Ziegler, )andin (Fleury-Brugière & Brugière, ). Both these studies focused on market surveys, Methods revealing that the Park harbours a diverse mammalian fauna that is threatened by hunting, but