We are literally eating away at Latin America鈥檚 primate population. A huge but hitherto unreported escalation in the bushmeat trade is pushing dozens of species of monkeys and other non-human primates to the brink of extinction in South and Central America.
In the Brazilian Amazon alone, numbers of non-human primates are on average 93 per cent lower in areas where bushmeat hunting is rife compared with other zones. Populations are at risk in 16 of 22 countries and territories south of the US, and if the killing continues unabated, 60 per cent of species face extinction, according to a new review.
鈥淲e鈥檝e brought all the evidence together for the first time, which makes it clear how big the scale of the problem is,鈥� says Barbara Maas of Care for the Wild International, a UK wildlife charity in Kingsfold, Sussex, which co-published the review with Pro Wildlife of Munich, Germany, on 12 March. 鈥淚t鈥檚 continent-wide, and it鈥檚 bad,鈥� she says.
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While the bushmeat crisis in Africa is well known, the escalation in Latin America has largely gone unnoticed, says Maas. There, the traditional and supposedly sustainable practice of killing and eating monkeys for subsistence has become imperceptibly commercialised. 鈥淚t covers much larger areas and uses much more effective weapons than the blowpipes traditionally used,鈥� she says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 mainly the biggest monkeys, such as woolly, spider, howler and capuchin monkeys,鈥� says Maas. 鈥淭hey have more meat on them and are easier targets.鈥�
