British meat consumers eat monkey species to extinction
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primates . Close genes and viruses can cross over and infect
permanently . Its time to respect all rare creatures and make them
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A monkey species was eaten into extinction last year - the gorilla
could be next
Hunters are slaughtering African wildlife to supply the UK meat trade,
reports Anthony Browne
Sunday February 24, 2002
The Observer
A horrific trade in apes and monkeys being sold as meat in Britain is
threatening chimpanzees and gorillas with extinction, an Observer
investigation reveals. The growing international trade in 'bushmeat'
means the flesh of endangered animals is increasingly available from
markets and shops in London and elsewhere in the country.
Scientists warn that the bushmeat trade has become so large that much
of the wildlife in the forests of Central and West Africa is
threatened with extinction within decades. One species of monkey - the
Miss Waldron Red Colobus - was eaten to extinction last year, and
conservationists say that, at the current rate of consumption,
gorillas, bonobos (pygmy chimps) and chimpanzees have only about 10
years left.
Despite repeated finds of bushmeat in freight and personal luggage,
officials say they are virtually powerless to stop imports.
Environmental health officers have no powers to investigate the sale
of the meat and can act only if it is reported to them.
In Ridley Road market at Dalston, north London, last week a butcher
selling goat carcasses and cow stomachs said: 'There is monkey meat
for sale here if people know you.' Last year two shopkeepers were
jailed for smuggling bushmeat of endangered animals, and traders have
become more secretive.
One stallholder told The Observer: 'Monkey meat, monkey meat, we have
monkey meat - but not for you.' A whole smoked monkey sells for about
£350.
Last week random checks by port health officials found 427kg of animal
produce including bushmeat on flights into Heathrow, including 193kg
on Sunday alone.
Last year more than 15.1 tonnes of illegal meat was impounded at
Heathrow. On one flight from Nigeria, officials uncovered six dried
monkey carcasses. Other meat seized included antelope, bats, tortoise
legs and ant-eaters.
At Gatwick airport, the port health authority has done 20 inspections
in the last 10 months, uncovering more than two tonnes of illegal
meat, including bushmeat such as fruit bats and various rodents. Mike
Young, head of environmental services at Gatwick, said: 'Some people
bring in 200kg in bags packed to the brim with meat, and claim it is
gifts for friends. However, if they surrender the meat to us there is
no offence, and we cannot take action against them.'
Clive Lawrence of Ciel Logistics, which disposes of illegal hauls of
meat at Heathrow, said: 'It is organised, it is big money. People get
paid £30 at check-in desks in Ghana or Nigeria to take a suitcase with
meat in it with a street value of £1,000. When they arrive this end,
the passengers pass in line to the car park and deposit their
suitcases in a transit van.' Customs officials do nothing about the
trade: they do not see it as their responsibility.
Bushmeat is a traditional source of food as well as a delicacy in many
parts of Africa. However, the trade is becoming increasingly
commercialised, with growing international sales both within Africa
and in Europe. John Fa of the Durrell Wildlife Trust, who is leading a
project in West Africa investigating the consumption of bushmeat,
estimates that 3.4 million tonnes of meat came out of the Congo basin
forest last year.
'It is totally unsustainable - we are likely to have a major demise of
animals in the forest. There is subsistence hunting, but it is mainly
commercialised, and there is a substantial amount coming into Britain,
Paris, Brussels and Madrid - all the places that have a link with West
Africa,' he said.
Primates such as gorillas, colobuses and chimpanzees are prone to
over-hunting because they are large and slow-moving, and they are
openly sold in African markets. The mandrill, a baboon, is
particularly prized and its meat is far more expensive than that of
antelopes or rats. The meat is sold either smoked or fresh and is
often used in stews.
A favourite is pepe soup, a hot chilli powder soup with gorilla flesh.
It is believed that the meat will make you stronger, more agile and
cunning.
The number of chimpanzees in the wild has fallen from 2 million a
century ago to 110,000 now, with only 10,000 bonobos left. As wildlife
becomes harder to find, hunters are turning to smaller animals, such
as duikers, and to previously taboo animals such as hippos.
Barry Gardiner, the MP who is this week launching the UK Bushmeat
Campaign in Parliament, said: 'Millions of pounds of bushmeat are
coming into the UK each year. There is a developing international
trade in bushmeat that has been exacerbated by logging companies
opening up the routes into the forest for the hunters - and that is
fuelled by growing Western demand for tropical forest timber.'
The increasing commercial trade is seen as a particular threat to
forest peoples who depend on bushmeat as their only source of protein.
'Some of the poorest people in the world have a limited resource that
in a few years the hunters will have taken, leaving nothing for the
local community,' says Gardiner. 'These people face the possibility of
starvation if this continues, even more than they already do.'