Poaching is widespread around the Serengeti National Park, especially on the western side where human population is dense. It's done primarily to supply bushmeat, a traditional source of protein for local people. (photo: rangers remove a wire snare from a wildebeest)
The bushmeat trade is enormous and growing:
A 2014
study
estimated an astounding offtake of 97,000-140,000 wildebeest
per year
. Tens of thousands of other animals are consumed as well. The rise of organized poaching gangs combined with a doubling of human population around the Serengeti by mid-century will result in an unsustainable loss of wildlife.
The impact of the bushmeat trade is not just on wildlife.
It's a growing public health threat.
As the new coronavirus again demonstrates, consumption of wildlife brings disease risks. Chinese wildlife markets are a breeding ground for pathogens that can jump from animals to humans. SARS came from civet cats. The MERS virus is thought to have been transmitted from camels in the Middle East. HIV and Ebola, possibly even malaria, from African primates.
Read more
.
In fact, diseases transmitted from animals to humans represented 60 percent of all emerging infection disease events (EIDs) between 1940 and 2004. Source:
Nature
.
According to a recent (December 2019)
study
around the Serengeti,
“
People who eat wildebeests, warthogs and other wild African animals may be at risk for contracting potentially life-threatening diseases, according to an international team of researchers. The team analyzed samples of bushmeat — meat derived from wildlife — in the Western Serengeti in Tanzania and identified several groups of bacteria, many of which contain the species that cause diseases such as anthrax, brucellosis and Q fever.”
These emerging diseases not only affect local people,
they now spread far and wide with alarming speed.
This shows why it's so important to work with (not against) local communities, help reduce human population growth around the Serengeti, and expand anti-poaching enforcement.
