In the marketplaces of Central Africa it's a common sight to see the body parts of gorillas, bonobos and chimpanzees hanging on hooks to be sold as food.
But US environmentalists and biologists are now warning that the growing appetite for "bushmeat" is not only threatening Africa's great apes with extinction but also posing a growing AIDS risk to humans.
As logging companies forge roads into areas previously inaccessible to humans, apes are forced out of their habitats and then pursued by growing numbers of hunters and butchers who turn man's closest relatives into dinner.
The result is a sudden explosion in scope and impact of the traditional consumption of wild animal meat from a means of subsistence to an enormous and unsustainable business with global health implications, said Los Angeles-based biologist Dale Peterson.
"It's a US$361 million business and the supply is collapsing based on sophisticated hunting techniques," said Peterson, the author of a book on the subject called Eating Apes.
Comparing the business to the US$1 billion-a-year logging business which is expanding, he said that while the dwindling ape population remains a major concern to environmentalists, there were human health risks too.
The butchering process of the apes is at the heart of the potential health crisis.
"We're eating our closest relatives," said Michael Dee, general curator at the Los Angeles Zoo. "If a person has a wound or gets blood in his mouth, then the disease would be transmitted."
About 1 percent of HIV-2 (human immuno-deficiency virus number 2) cases, the type that affects West Africa, is transmitted during the butchering process of monkeys, he said.
Since diseases find ways to mutate or cross over to different species -- including HIV and SARS, which is thought to have originated in Civet cats -- the rise of a third strain of HIV is becoming increasingly likely as the bushmeat phenomenon grows, Dee said.
The contraction in population of the creatures has long been a worry for conservationists, but the problem is now reaching epidemic proportions.
Only about 120,000 gorillas -- enough to fill just one large football stadium -- remain in the world, as well as 250,000 chimpanzees and 50,000 bonobos.
By comparison, the number of humans is increasing at the rate of two stadiums a day and expanding into new areas.
"We owe it to them to save them," Peterson said.
But while orphanages have sprung up to care for apes that have lost their parents to hunters' bullets, conservationists are having trouble making their warnings about the surge in appetite for bushmeat heard because the subject matter was "too disturbing" for audiences.
"Not a lot of people want to buy a book of a gorilla's head in a pan or a hand being butchered," Peterson said.
Peterson and a coalition of defenders of Africa's besieged great apes are trying to rally public awareness and financial support for a drive to clamp down on the eating of apes.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS