Hunting monkeys bad for forest

2008-05-21 21:48

Bonn - Monkeys are being slaughtered by the million every year to cater to the rising demand for "bushmeat", with dire consequences for the tropical forests they roam in Africa, Asia and South America.

The commercialisation of the practice - bushmeat fetches high prices in cities like London - along with modern hunting methods, is devastating monkey species, researchers told the UN biodiversity conference taking place in the German city of Bonn.

The monkeys play a key role in spreading the seeds of certain trees, either because the seeds are better able to germinate after being passed through the monkeys' digestive systems, or because they are released from their hard pods by the monkeys while foraging.

The German-based conservation group Pro Wildlife assembled 92 international researchers from the fields of ecology, botany and anthropology to assess the impact of monkey hunting and present their findings to the 5 000 delegates attending the two-week conference.

The results were alarming: in many cases there are no laws against the hunting and in others the law is not applied.

Monkey meat used to be consumed by indigenous peoples in a sustainable way, but now there is a lucrative trade in the meat, Sandra Altherr, a Pro Wildlife biologist, says.

Ecosystem out of balance

"In many rainforest regions, the larger monkey species have already disappeared, and the hunters have ever smaller species in their sights," Altherr says.

"These days they are even shooting squirrel monkeys, which have very little meat on them," she says. Squirrel monkeys, which range through Central and South America generally weigh about a kilogram.

According to Pro Wildlife, recent research shows that in those regions of the South American rain forests where monkey species have been exterminated, certain tree species have little chance of survival.

"They help reforest the rain forests. If they are not there, the surrounding ecosystem can get out of balance in the longer term," Altherr says.

Conservation organisations believe that a quarter of all monkey and related prosimian species are under threat of extinction, partly as a result of loss of habitat but increasingly through hunting for bushmeat.

The meat is seen as a delicacy in many parts of Africa and in Brazil.

Emigrant populations have taken their taste for bushmeat with them to Western Europe and North America where there is now a growing, although illegal, trade in monkey meat.

Britain's New Scientist magazine has reported that chimpanzee and gorilla body parts have been found on markets in eight cities outside Africa, with more than 6 000kg of bushmeat traded monthly on these markets alone.

Some entirely eradicated

The use of modern hunting techniques has greatly exacerbated the problem, Altherr says.

"These days hunting is no longer conducted with the blowpipe, but with the rifle," she says, adding that the hunters are now able to penetrate ever deeper into the dense forests to target the last refuges of their target species.

In South America some species have been eradicated entirely in certain regions.

Pro Wildlife estimates that up to 5.4 million Capuchin, Woolly, Howler and Spider monkeys are taken in the Brazilian Amazon each year. - Sapa-dpa

- SAPA