Bushmeat
 Bushmeat seen on the roadside in Ghana: includes dried cane rat, giant pouched rat, and red-flanked duiker. | |
| Alternative names | Wild meat, wild game |
|---|---|
| Main ingredients | Wildlife |
Bushmeat is meat from wildlife hunted for human consumption, particularly in Africa. Bushmeat often consists of local mammals in an area, but can also refer to small birds and reptiles. Bushmeat is also a significant public health concern due to its association with zoonotic disease transmission.
In a public health context, bushmeat is of concern due to its association with the transmission of zoonotic diseases such as Ebola and HIV, as well as other emerging infectious diseases linked to the handling, butchering, and consumption of wild animals. Bushmeat represents a primary source of animal protein and a source of income in poor and rural communities of humid tropical forest regions of the world.
The numbers of animals killed and traded as bushmeat in 1994 in West and Central Africa were thought to be unsustainable. By 2005, commercial harvesting and trading of bushmeat was considered a threat to biodiversity. As of 2016, 301 terrestrial mammals were threatened with extinction due to hunting for bushmeat including non-human primates, even-toed ungulates, bats, diprotodont marsupials, rodents and carnivores occurring in developing countries.