Bush meat consumption: Eating wildlife into extinction
Robert Akumaveh, a middle aged civil servant who works at the federal ministry of finance, Abuja, told Sunday Trust that “the best part of my day is when, after the close of work, I come here with my colleagues and relax over plates of bush meat pepper soup with fresh palm wine to wash it […]
Robert Akumaveh, a middle aged civil servant who works at the federal ministry of finance, Abuja, told Sunday Trust that “the best part of my day is when, after the close of work, I come here with my colleagues and relax over plates of bush meat pepper soup with fresh palm wine to wash it down. Bush meat is a very special delicacy, especially as a Tiv man, I don’t joke with it, and I enjoy it very much.” Sharing Akumaveh’s view is Daniel Okollo, a commercial bus driver from Benue state who was deeply engrossed with his sumptuous delicacy. “This is the height of maximum enjoyment for me. Every day, I actually look forward to coming here, especially after the day’s hard work, to relax with my favourite meal. Even my wife at home knows I don’t joke with my bush meat. It is always part and parcel of my day,” he intoned amid a mouthful of pepper soup.
Similarly, Tyozenda Benjamin, a banker with Commerz Micro Financial Bank in Abuja, told Sunday Trust that there is something about the bush meat delicacy that attracts him on a daily basis to the joint. According to the 39-year-old banker from Benue State, “every day on my way home, I make out time to patronize this joint for a very wonderful time. Apart from the delicious bush meat pepper soup, there are also other side attractions that I enjoy here. The way the traditional drummers manipulate their drums coupled with the exotic dance steps of the dancers are always the highpoint of the event”.
Linking his cultural background to bush meat consumption, Benjamin said: “As a proud Tiv man, I relish bush meat a lot because it is one of our traditional delicacies and because living in Abuja can be very hectic, I always come here for a treat. Besides, bush meat is a very symbolic item in my culture”.
While Robert, Benjamin and Daniel enjoy their meal, a group of Tiv traditional musicians were handy to thrill the teeming clients with indigenous tunes and dance steps.
Madam Hilltop said the bush meat business is lucrative. According to her, “this business has brought me great fortunes. As a Tiv woman, I inherited the trade from my mother who operated a local restaurant in the village. But I decided to step up the business by bringing it down here. And for the past 21 years, I have done nothing else apart from selling bush meat pepper soup to my customers which has really paid off. For instance, I have been able to build a house and financed my three children up to the university level, so it is a lucrative business,” she enthused.
Sarah has been cooking bush meat for so long she has the title ‘Mama Nama’ from her customers, meaning mother of meat. A plate of her pepper soup in her local restaurant goes for as high as one thousand five hundred naira.
She sells a variety of bush meat delicacies which consist of antelopes, grass-cutters, alligators, bush pigs and a host of others.
When asked about how she gets the meat, she says she buys from local hunters and smoked meat sellers from Nasarawa State.
A portion of Iguana meat on the fire comes from Maiduguri, near the border with Chad. Sarah has bought a warthog (bush rabbit) which she has boiled. The meat is then smoked for three days to preserve it. Customers can buy portions to cook at home or readymade soups to eat while drinking palm wine. “People like it because it has less fat,” says Sarah. Ibrahim, a regular customer, says it is worth the extra expense. “It costs more but I feel better eating it.”
Skinning the freshly-killed meat close by is Abdulmalik Kassim, a bush meat hunter. Abdulmalik is a hunter from Nasarawa Eggon in Nasarawa State who says he has criss-crossed the wooded hills around Akwanga in Nasarawa State for close to 27 years. Akwanga is well known for the quality of its bush meat – wild game. He hunts with an ancient flintlock musket. He told Sunday Trust that monkey meat tastes like dog meat.
Catching the wildlife
Narrating the hunters’ modus operandi to Sunday Trust, Abulmalik said they prepare themselves by burning herbs mixed with shards of bone from their quarry. The hunters believe this masks their smell and allows them to creep up on their prey. They deliver their kill to a part of Akwanga market and Ado where women, especially those from Benue State, specialise in cooking bush meat. It is made into pepper soup, and is much more expensive than any other kind of meat.
Apart from the ancient flintlock musket, there are other ways of hunting down the bush meat. According to Ahmed Bisiriyu who resides in new Karu, Nasarawa State, “we sometimes set the bush on fire in our bid to hunt for bush meat, especially the grass-cutters and the local rabbits. We do this when there are signs that snakes or scorpions might be hiding in the bush. So, to prevent the bush meat from escaping, we set the bush on fire and in the process, they are roasted or while they try to escape, we quickly kill them with sticks and cutlasses.
“Apart from this method, we usually dig holes in the bush, especially in areas where we suspect they might be hiding. So we dig two holes and set fire to the first one with the expectation that the smoke from the fire will send them out of their holes,” he said.
Damage to environment
However, while Bisiriyu and his friend enjoy their hunting game, their actions have attracted widespread condemnation from the government and the environmentally-conscious members of the society. Bush burning, in some cases, has resulted in loss of lives and property, especially when the fire gets out of control of those who started it. Uncontrolled spread of fire has in the past extended to residential houses and farmlands. Such fires are also known to have destroyed acres of farmlands and grain silos where large quantities of cereals, seeds and seedlings are stored. Trees that provide shelter for birds and their nests are likewise destroyed in the process.
Fidelis Anuka, an environmentalist who claimed to have done a lot of research on the harmful effects of bush burning on the environment, told Sunday Trust on phone that “the negative impact of bush burning needs not be over emphasized, especially during the dry season in northern Nigeria as apart from environmental pollution and health hazards, bush burning obviously causes immense catastrophes in many quarters. They include bush burning as public nuisance, the suffocating experience felt by people due to the huge smoke soaring in the air during the heat and the pollution of the ozone layer of the environment.
“In this regard, the menace is of double tragedy in the sense that while the heat is unbearable, bush burning also heats up the soil thereby blazing up its nutrients, including the fertilizer elements. Furthermore, the fire is smouldering and all the proponents of the plants as well as the grasses that are useful in conserving the forest, wildlife and small animals are being destroyed in large proportion,” he said.
Apart from these dangers, their action is a violation of many laws enacted to protect the environment and the endangered wildlife such as the endangered wildlife decree promulgated during General Muhammadu Buhari’s regime. To evade the laws, they sometimes carry out their operations discreetly.
Akpan Emmanuel, a local bush meat hunter, said that he has over 15 years’ experience as a hunter in his native village of Ugep, Cross River State, before exporting his skills to Abuja where he often goes in search of bush meat in the thick forests of Nasarawa State. According to him, the traders restrict their sale of bush meat to the early hours of the day before officials of the law enforcement agencies begin their day’s job. Movement of bush meat from the interior to the markets or homes is mostly done during the weekends, especially Sundays, and also public holidays, when officials are less vigilant or are likely to be away from their duty posts. Others go through odd routes, such as rivers, bush tracks and farm trails.
Beyond the recognized bush meat markets, other avenues for trade and consumption include, but are not limited to, roadsides (especially along major highways), restaurants, drinking parlours, hotels, bush meat bars and joints.
Dr Dare Olubanwo, a veterinary doctor based in Abuja, is of the opinion that “bush meat generally refers to meat derived from wild animals (from wildlife sources), which is normally consumed in place of meat from domestic or livestock sources. The supply of bush meat from wild sources no doubt serves as the only possible measure to bridge the gap between livestock production protein supply and human population growth. Wild animals of various sizes, both vertebrates and invertebrates, form parts of the diet of people across the globe.”
Speaking further, Dr Olubanwo explained that wild animal meat demands tend to focus on large game species such as antelopes, large primates, large rodents and so on. The preference for bush meat has been attributed to the higher protein content and the fact that bush meat contains less fat than those of the domestic animal and supplies iron, vitamins A and B, etc.
Investigations by Sunday Trust reveal that many bush meat markets exist in Cross River State and in many other cities within adjoining states in southern Nigeria. But the most popular markets can be found in Obanliku, Obudu, Boki, Ikom, Ugep, Biase, Akamkpa and Calabar local government areas. Majority of these markets operate weekly, on separate days of the week on a rotational basis. In each of these markets, full bush meat sales do not go on throughout the duration of the markets. The sale begins as soon as day breaks. At this time, the buyers (mostly women) who have gathered from several locations, especially densely populated cities such as Uyo, Aba, Port Harcourt and Calabar, and the middlemen (mostly men) who have returned from several hunting sites across the state and from across the international border, engage in the brisk trade in black market style. It is the middlemen who have either direct contact with the hunters or the village collectors.
The popularity and demand for some exotic wild animals in contrast to farm animals continues to make the trade in these species generally referred to as ‘bush meat’, a lucrative trade. The distribution of these species has gone beyond the usual local joints to sophisticated fast food restaurants and notable hotels. With increasing demand, exploitation of the animals has become a cause for concern to conservationists.
In an interaction with Sunday Trust, Dr Ibrahim Junaid, who specializes in pets and animals, explained that the species usually hunted and consumed as ‘bush meat’ include several rain forest and savanna animals, like the deer, antelope, gorilla and crocodile as well as rodents, like cane-rat, hedgehog, guinea pig and porcupine. All these species present a conservation problem. However, the demand for each specie is mostly concentrated within the areas they proliferate, such that in Nigeria and the West African sub-region, the cane-rat popularly known as grass cutter is the most exploited of all these species.
The indiscriminate consumption of bush meat by various groups in Nigeria has also raised concerns that these animals might be extinct. Dr Edem Eniang of the University of Uyo, in a phone conversation, is of the view that “since people traditionally tend to prefer bush meat, the government, NGOs (and) schools should embark on projects aimed at educating Nigerians about wild animals and bush meat on one hand, and the conservation of biodiversity on the other. The projects should also provide alternatives to bush meat.
“It is recommended that meat from livestock sources be provided in areas where people have no access to it. In addition, the domestication of adaptable wildlife species for consumption should be encouraged in areas where people have access to livestock but show preference for animals from the wild (bush meat). These measures will help our national parks achieve their long-term goals of biodiversity conservation.”