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Bushmeat consumption remains significant in urban Central Africa. Increasing urbanization has fueled bushmeat trade and become a threat to endangered species like the pangolin. Behavioral change interventions may help reduce demand for pangolins in urban centers. However, there is still a lack of adequate locally‐specific research on consumer behavior and drivers of demand to effectively guide such interventions. Our study addressed this knowledge gap through semistructured interviews to investigate consumer preferences and bushmeat consumption habits and perceptions of 597 participants in Bertoua and Ebolowa, Cameroon. Bushmeat, in general, was positively perceived as a tasty, healthy, and luxurious item that meets cultural needs, while domestic meat was negatively perceived as an unhealthy and intensively processed product. The biggest barriers to bushmeat consumption were its illegality and high price. Pangolin was among the most desired types of bushmeat. Nearly half of pangolin consumers were willing to pay more for a pangolin meal. Despite being fully protected by national laws, pangolins were consistently found in local bushmeat markets and restaurants, suggesting the ineffectiveness in law enforcement and/or communication with the public about the legal protection and current status of pangolins. Our findings provide an understanding of sociocultural consumer behavior and drivers that can help guide bushmeat demand reduction interventions in urban centers of Cameroon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a case study of the "This is Not A Game" campaign in Zambia, which is aimed at influencing the demand for bushmeat. Bushmeat is essential nourishment for many people, so preventing its consumption can be difficult, even with the expressed goal of wildlife conservation. A content analysis of the messaging strategies used in this specific campaign reveals the implementation and effectiveness of various psychological appeals, message themes, and calls to action in creating online awareness and discouraging illegal bushmeat consumption. The data shows that fear appeals, particularly when conveyed in messaging related to human health and legal consequences, were among the most used and most engaging strategies in the campaign. The results of this study can be used to demonstrate the role that marketing could play in informing other approaches to stop crimes against wildlife. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The threat posed to protected areas by the illegal killing of wildlife is countered principally by ranger patrols that aim to detect and deter potential offenders. Deterring poaching is a fundamental conservation objective, but its achievement is difficult to identify, especially when the prime source of information comes in the form of the patrols' own records, which inevitably contain biases. The most common metric of deterrence is a plot of illegal activities detected per unit of patrol effort (CPUE) against patrol effort (CPUE‐E). We devised a simple, mechanistic model of law breaking and law enforcement in which we simulated deterrence alongside exogenous changes in the frequency of offences under different temporal patterns of enforcement effort. The CPUE‐E plots were not reliable indicators of deterrence. However, plots of change in CPUE over change in effort (ΔCPUE‐ΔE) reliably identified deterrence, regardless of the temporal distribution of effort or any exogenous change in illegal activity levels as long as the time lag between patrol effort and subsequent behavioral change among offenders was approximately known. The ΔCPUE‐ΔE plots offered a robust, simple metric for monitoring patrol effectiveness; were no more conceptually complicated than the basic CPUE‐E plots; and required no specialist knowledge or software to produce. Our findings demonstrate the need to account for temporal autocorrelation in patrol data and to consider appropriate (and poaching‐activity‐specific) intervals for aggregation. They also reveal important gaps in understanding of deterrence in this context, especially the mechanisms by which it occurs. In practical applications, we recommend the use of ΔCPUE‐ΔE plots in preference to other basic metrics and advise that deterrence should be suspected only if there is a clear negative slope. Distinct types of illegal activity should not be grouped together for analysis, especially if the signs of their occurrence have different persistence times in the environment. Article impact statement: Deterrent effects of conservation law enforcement may be robustly assessed by applying relatively simple metrics to ranger patrol data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Recent seizures of illegally held wildlife indicate a mounting global trade in pangolins involving all eight species. Seizures of illegally traded African pangolins are increasing as wild populations of Asian species decline. We investigated trade in pangolins and law enforcement efforts in Gabon; a country likely to have intact wild populations of three of the four species of African pangolin. We compared village sales and trade chains between 2002‐2003 and 2014. Hunters reported pangolins to be the most frequently requested species in 2014, and the value of pangolins had increased at every point along their trade chain. In Libreville, giant pangolin prices increased 211% and arboreal pangolin prices 73% whilst inflation rose only 4.6% over the same period. We documented a low rate of interception of illegally traded pangolins despite increased law enforcement. Surveys of potential export routes detected exports across forest borders, in conjunction with ivory, but not through public transport routes. We conclude that whilst there is clear potential and likelihood that a wild pangolin export trade is emerging from Gabon, traditional bushmeat trade chains may not be the primary supply route. We recommend adjusting conservation policies and actions to impede further development of illegal trade within and from Gabon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The trade and consumption of bushmeat are a major threat to biodiversity across the tropics. Conservationists have traditionally advocated for stricter regulation and enforcement as a way to control these practices, with less attention given to consumers and the management of the demand. Yet, it is clear that without adequately tackling demand, it is impossible to effectively curb the bushmeat trade. In this paper, we describe an intervention to reduce demand for bushmeat in northern Tanzania. The intervention was centered around the 1‐h radio show My Wildlife – My Community which included 15‐min episodes of the radio drama Temboni. Each episode of the radio drama was accompanied by a 45‐min interactive call‐in show featuring interviews with experts and local information about available community resources. We evaluated this intervention using a Before‐After‐Control‐Impact framework based on longitudinal data from 168 respondents. To account for the fact that respondents volunteered to be exposed to the intervention, in this case the radio show, we used a matching algorithm together with regression to ensure that we could build a credible counterfactual group. Our analysis did not uncover any differences in outcomes between the treatment and control groups, and thus no evidence of the intervention achieving its initial goals. One potential causal mechanism that could have led to this outcome is the low audience penetration rate. Fewer than 40% of respondents listened to the show and among those who did, only about 20% listened to five of more episodes. This research highlights the challenges of implementing and evaluating interventions delivered through mass media in developing countries, and the importance of reporting on interventions even when there is no evidence that they achieved their initial goals. Only through robust evaluation of behavior change interventions and the sharing of lessons learned can conservationists successfully tackle complex issues such as the bushmeat trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to their direct dependence on wildlife products for subsistent use, people living in poverty are often viewed as being in conflict with wildlife conservation. We studied the attitudes of local people towards mountain nyala ( Tragelaphus buxtoni) in Munessa, Ethiopia. A household survey (n = 214) was used to examine the socio-economic characteristics and beliefs of local people from three peasant associations and one village. Generally, the study revealed that local people had positive attitudes towards mountain nyala, its conservation and population increase, which is consistent with our predictions. For example, a greater percentage of the respondents had positive (62.5%) rather than negative (37.5%) attitudes towards mountain nyala and its conservation. Moreover, the larger proportion of the respondents had positive (66.67%) rather than negative (33.3%) attitudes towards an increase in mountain nyala population. However, compared to socio-economic characteristics, beliefs towards mountain nyala were more powerful and consistent predictor of attitudes and explained much of the variances of the two groups of the dependent variables. Thus, informing local communities about the value of mountain nyala (e.g. recreational and economic) through conservation education, advocating the need for sustainable utilization and introducing an economic benefit sharing may improve positive attitude and increase participation of local people in conservation and management of the mountain nyala population in Munessa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Africa, overhunting of tropical wildlife for food remains an intractable issue. Donors and governments remain committed to invest in efforts to both conserve and allow the sustainable use of wildlife. Four principal barriers need to be overcome: (i) communities are not motivated to conserve wildlife long-term because they have no formal rights to benefit from wildlife, or to exclude others from taking it on their land; (ii) multispecies harvests, typical of bushmeat hunting scenarios, place large-bodied species at risk of extinction; (iii) wildlife production cannot expand, in the same way that livestock farming can, to meet the expected growth in consumer demand; and (iv) wildlife habitat is lost through conversion to agriculture, housing, transportation networks and extractive industries. In this review, we examine the actors involved in the use of wildlife as food and discuss the possible solutions required to address urban and rural bushmeat consumption. Interventions must tackle use and conservation of wildlife through the application of context-relevant interventions in a variety of geographies across Africa. That said, for any bushmeat solution to work, there needs to be concurrent and comparable investment in strengthening the effectiveness of protected area management and enforcement of wildlife conservation laws. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND Troponin T ( TnT) is degraded during aging of meat. The proteolytic fragment of TnT, especially the 30 kDa fragment, is used as one of indices for estimating aging of meat. We have tried to use quartz crystal microbalance ( QCM), which is widely used to analyze interaction among macromolecules, to detect proteolytic fragments of TnT during aging of meat. RESULT The frequency of the QCM sensor with immobilized anti- TnT antibody in high-salt solution extracts of both myofibrils and whole meat decreased with time of aging. The staining intensity of the bands, including a 30 kDa fragment bound to anti- TnT antibody, also increased with time of aging in western blotting. These results confirm that TnT is degraded during aging and released from thin filaments, and QCM analysis is sufficiently sensitive to detect the TnT fragments. CONCLUSION The QCM analysis of muscle and myofibrillar extracts using anti- TnT antibody-immobilized sensor can be used as a convenient tool for monitoring the extent of aging of meat. © 2015 Society of Chemical Industry [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND The meat from African game species is healthy, naturally produced and increasingly popular with consumers. Among these species, zebra ( Equus quagga burchellii) are growing in number in South Africa, with the meat from surplus animals holding potential to contribute to food security and economic stability. Despite being consumed locally and globally, little information exists on the composition of zebra meat. This study aimed to determine the proximate composition of zebra meat as well as the fatty acid composition of the intramuscular ( IMF) and subcutaneous ( SCF) fat. RESULTS Zebra longissimus lumborum muscle was shown to have a high mean protein content (22.29 g per 100 g) and low mean fat content (1.47 g per 100 g). High proportions of polyunsaturated fatty acids ( PUFAs) were found in the IMF (41.15%) and SCF (37.71%), mainly comprising α-linolenic ( C18:3 n-3) and linoleic ( C18:2 n-6) acids. Furthermore, the IMF and SCF had favourable PUFA/saturated fatty acid ratios (>0.4) and omega-6/omega-3 ratios (<4), indicating that both components are healthy lipid food sources. CONCLUSION This study has shed new light on the nutritional value of zebra meat, which will not only be important for food product labelling, nutritional education and incorporation into food composition databases, but will also be indispensable for marketing and export purposes. © 2016 Society of Chemical Industry [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Illegal hunting for bushmeat is regarded as an important cause of biodiversity decline in Africa. We use a 'stated preferences' method to obtain information on determinants of demand for bushmeat and two other protein sources, fish and chicken, in villages around the Serengeti National Park, Tanzania. Our study focuses particularly on the impact of price changes, as anticipating and understanding the impact of price changes (whether caused by conservation interventions or market changes) on demand for bushmeat enables effective responses to be planned. We estimate the effects of changes in the price of bushmeat and in the prices of two substitute protein sources - fish and chicken - on household demand for bushmeat. Results suggest that increasing the availability of lower priced protein substitutes would reduce demand for bushmeat, and therefore, potentially pressure on wildlife populations. However, raising the price of bushmeat (e.g. as a result of reducing illegal hunting) would reduce household demand to a greater degree than equivalent decreases in the price of alternative protein sources. In both cases, elasticity of demand parameters are reported, which summarize the relative response to households to these alternative interventions. A 10% rise in bushmeat prices would reduce demand by around 6-7%, while a 10% fall in chicken or fish prices would reduce bushmeat demand by around 3-4%. The response to price changes varied between ethnic groups, and also according to household size (with the direction of the effect depending on whether the substitute was chicken or fish), but was not significantly affected by wealth or income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The bushmeat trade in tropical Africa represents illegal, unsustainable off-takes of millions of tons of wild game - mostly mammals - per year. We sequenced four mitochondrial gene fragments (cyt b, COI, 12S, 16S) in >300 bushmeat items representing nine mammalian orders and 59 morphological species from five western and central African countries ( Guinea, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea). Our objectives were to assess the efficiency of cross-species PCR amplification and to evaluate the usefulness of our multilocus approach for reliable bushmeat species identification. We provide a straightforward amplification protocol using a single 'universal' primer pair per gene that generally yielded >90% PCR success rates across orders and was robust to different types of meat preprocessing and DNA extraction protocols. For taxonomic identification, we set up a decision pipeline combining similarity- and tree-based approaches with an assessment of taxonomic expertise and coverage of the GENBANK database. Our multilocus approach permitted us to: (i) adjust for existing taxonomic gaps in GENBANK databases, (ii) assign to the species level 67% of the morphological species hypotheses and (iii) successfully identify samples with uncertain taxonomic attribution (preprocessed carcasses and cryptic lineages). High levels of genetic polymorphism across genes and taxa, together with the excellent resolution observed among species-level clusters (neighbour-joining trees and Klee diagrams) advocate the usefulness of our markers for bushmeat DNA typing. We formalize our DNA typing decision pipeline through an expert-curated query database - DNA bushmeat - that shall permit the automated identification of African forest bushmeat items. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bushmeat management policies are often developed outside the communities in which they are to be implemented. These policies are also routinely designed to be applied uniformly across communities with little regard for variation in social or ecological conditions. We used fuzzy-logic cognitive mapping, a form of participatory modeling, to compare the assumptions driving externally generated bushmeat management policies with perceptions of bushmeat trade dynamics collected from local community members who admitted to being recently engaged in bushmeat trading (e.g., hunters, sellers, consumers). Data were collected during 9 workshops in 4 Tanzanian villages bordering Serengeti National Park. Specifically, we evaluated 9 community-generated models for the presence of the central factors that comprise and drive the bushmeat trade and whether or not models included the same core concepts, relationships, and logical chains of reasoning on which bushmeat conservation policies are commonly based. Across local communities, there was agreement about the most central factors important to understanding the bushmeat trade (e.g., animal recruitment, low income, and scarcity of food crops). These matched policy assumptions. However, the factors perceived to drive social-ecological bushmeat trade dynamics were more diverse and varied considerably across communities (e.g., presence or absence of collaborative law enforcement, increasing human population, market demand, cultural preference). Sensitive conservation issues, such as the bushmeat trade, that require cooperation between communities and outside conservation organizations can benefit from participatory modeling approaches that make local-scale dynamics and conservation policy assumptions explicit. Further, communities' and conservation organizations' perceptions need to be aligned. This can improve success by allowing context appropriate policies to be developed, monitored, and appropriately adapted as new evidence is generated. Dinámicas a Escala Local y Conductores Locales del Mercado de Carne de Caza [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND The harvesting and consumption of game meat in South Africa is not limited to season. The study was thus aimed at investigating the seasonal impact on the chemical composition (moisture, protein, fat and ash contents) of male and female blesbok muscles ( N = 32; longissimus dorsi, biceps femoris, semimembranosus, semitendinosus, infraspinatus and supraspinatus). RESULTS A significant interaction ( P ≤ 0.01) existed between season and muscle type. Selected muscles had higher ( P ≤ 0.01) mean protein contents with a higher plane of nutrition (spring of 2009), while longissimus dorsi muscles had the highest ( P ≤ 0.01) mean intramuscular fat content (33.52 g kg−1). A strong negative correlation ( r = −0.82; P ≤ 0.01) existed between the muscles' moisture and protein content. The chemical composition of blesbok semimembranosus muscles was significantly different between seasons, while the other muscles were least affected by seasonal differences in blesbok plane of nutrition and activity levels. CONCLUSION The seasonal and muscle differences were statistically significant, but numerically small. It is therefore debatable whether this is of biological relevance relating to human nutrition. © 2013 Society of Chemical Industry [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the sustainable harvest of bushmeat or wildlife species used for food in Africa. According to the authors, there is a consensus that a bushmeat crises exists from both a conservation and development perspective. They argue for a more supportive and consistent bushmeat development policy. They suggest that bushmeat harvesting is usually a survival strategy rather than a development policy. They recommend managing for all values of wildlife by creating protected areas where no hunting is allowed, production forests where hunting is managed sustainably and farm bush areas which would be managed locally where harvesting is ensured.

The article focuses on the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea and its impact on wildlife conservation. There are several arguments relating the epidemic to conservation efforts including the advantage of stopping consumption and trade in wild animals, the impact of bush meat consumption on the number of species, and the need to stop the illegal export trade in wildlife. The difference between the views of wildlife conservationists and animal rights advocates is mentioned.

Examines the market dynamics of bushmeat species in Equatorial Guinea, central Africa. Significance of the study in providing information on wildlife use and exploitation in the consumer regions; Factors that describe the abundance and availability of individual species; Observation of seasonal differences in carcass quantity; Comparison of monthly changes in number of carcasses of species.

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The selenium (Se) content (AOAC fluommetric method) of: 1) raw and cooked venison, squirrel, and beef from a low selenium region of the United States and 2) nonregion-raised beef was assessed and compared by region, species, and gender. For both raw and cooked meats, the Se content of venison was not different from region-raised beef (p > .05), and their contents were generally less than squirrel, which was less than nonregion-raised beef (p < .05). Gender and age did not influence Se content of the meats. Field-dressed weight did not affect Se content of deer, and antler size did not impact Se content of meat from male deer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A letter to the editor is presented in response to the article "No Conservation Silver Lining to Ebola" by S. Pooley and colleagues in a 2015 issue.

Reports on the qualitative risk assessment of the hazards and risk from wild game meat in Great Britain. Public health risks associated in utilizing meat from wild animals like gamebirds, ducks, deer and lagomorphs; Identification of health hazards based on literature searches and expert opinion.

Provides information on the result of a study on bushmeat consumption in Gabon conducted by David Wilkie, member of the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York, that will be published in the "Journal of International Wildlife Law & Policy, Conservation Biology." List of organizations and agencies which cooperated to conduct the study; Kinds of bushmeat used in the study; Differences of the bushmeat dynamics between rural and urban settings.

A response from Simon Pooley and colleagues to a letter to the editor about their article "No Conservation Silver Lining to Ebola" in a 2015 issue is presented.

A trained color panel was used to score both venison color and color acceptability for comparison with instrumental color measurements. Panel color scores were highly correlated with acceptability (r = 0.97) and could be predicted from CIE L*, a* and b* values by regression (R2 (adj) = 0.84). The use of a* alone explained the greatest amount of variation R2 (adj) = 0.78), and the inclusion of both L* and b* significantly improved the model. The use of hue angle and chroma either individually or in combination with L* did not provide better relationships. The use of L*, a* and b* is recommended for satisfactory prediction of panel color scores of venison with no less than three observations per sample. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the proposed new method in assessing bushmeat hunting sustainability for people in West and Central Africa.

Traditional populations like those of Guatemala are undergoing nutritional transition, with altered food habits bearing important implications for their health/disease patterns. To document changes in food patterns in Guatemala, we examined published reports of historical food data (traditional Guatemalans -- TG) and compared it to contemporary surveys among urban Mayans (UM), and non-Mayan (other) urban and rural Guatemalans (OG). We identified 210 distinct food items reported across time. The 108 items (51%) consumed by TG were considered old foods. Among UM 162 items (77%) and among OG 138 (66%) were currently being consumed. In each recent survey, however, ∼25% of the original old foods were no longer reported. Disappearing were several classes of game meat and foraged wild vegetables. Only 11% of old foods were processed, but this has increased to 23% in UM and 27% in OG diets. Sweetened breakfast cereals, snacks and sweet drinks constituted the majority of processed items. Secular changes in Guatemalan food patterns are marked by increased food variety, at expense of reduction in nutrient-dense foods and the extension of processed foods consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a research which revealed that despite the dangers of SARS and avian flu, the people of China still have a taste for wildlife consumption. Steve Trent, president of WildAid China, opined that most wildlife is eaten in southern regions and they do so in order to maintain their health, a tendency that increases with age and income. It is to be noted that more wildlife species are available for sale in wildlife markets as compared to 1999. Moreover, the percentage of wholesale markets selling wildlife has increased by 17.7%, whereas the number of grocery stores selling wildlife has increased by 22.8%. The Chinese Government has taken some steps to control wildlife consumption but it has been discovered that substantial extra effort and resources should be dedicated to enforcement, education and awareness.

Reports on the assessment of the risks to public health from wild game meat in Great Britain.