Just as many Americans travel into the wilderness to hunt elk, deer, boar, and pheasants, equatorial Africans search their forests each day for Duikers, Pangolins, elephants, and apes. In fact, this systematic hunting of various bush animals may be the final stroke that draws the magical existence of chimpanzees, Bonobos and gorillas to an end.

Before bewilderment runs wild on how humans could possibly be eating their sibling species to extinction, one must realize that the hunters are not engaging in this activity for sport, but as the only means available in keeping their families alive. This subsistence method has been utilized for thousands of years, and has only turned toward devastating dimensions upon the arrival of modern weapons, population explosions, and routes opened through previously impenetrable forests by foreign timber companies. It is now a commercial enterprise that has left regions of West Africa boasting rats as their largest wild mammal.

A required reading for anyone hoping to preserve Africa’s diverse wildlife is Dale Peterson’s Eating Apes – a groundbreaking book that sheds light on this seldom recognized issue. Peterson demonstrates the strong connection between wood and meat industries by showing how African forests have become jigsaw puzzles of foreign concessions, and how guns are lent out (and transportation provided) in exchange for fresh meat. He also reveals that this crisis is fed not only by Africans and timber-men, but by a variety of industrialized cities across the world with a taste for the illegal meat.

As the famous primatologist Jane Goodall has announced, “You must read this book.” In the meanwhile, please visit www.bushmeat.org, www.bushmeat.net or janegoodall.ca for more information.

photo credits: janegoodall.ca