There's a stall at my local market that sells whole pheasants, partridge and duck. They could most probably provide hare, rabbit and venison if asked. Of course, in the West, we don't call wild meat 'bush-meat', it's called 'game'. The terminology might be different, but the intention is the same - wild animals caught for the pot
Wild animals being caught for eating, and in most cases in some form of commercial scheme rather than for sustenance or out of any true necessity. I guess this might not be the same in all parts of the Western world, but here in Europe game meats are often considered delicacies, and you will often have to pay a fair amount to buy the meat or eat a dish with it.
I actually quite enjoy at least pheasant, wild boar and venison, and in my family we have a tradition of eating venison stew at family parties. But I am starting to question whether I should continue enjoying those.
While the hunting and wildlife eating in Europe, America or Australia might perhaps be done more ethically and hygienically, and might not pose the same risk as eating just about any living creature in China and storing, selling and preparing all those animals in very unhygienic conditions, it is still eating wildlife and at least for me it is starting to raise questions. Are we in the West to an extent hypocrites or can we say we're on some kind of moral high ground when it comes to wildlife consumption? Can we determine which ways of hunting and consuming wildlife in a commercial scheme are ethical, sustainable and safe, or is this humans should just not ethically do, and should we blanket-ban wildlife consumption that is not needed for sustenance? Can someone who is concerned about conservation and wildlife preservation actually ever ethically eat wild animals? Interesting but difficult questions.
It depends on the country and culture. With Europeans, some cultures find it an unpalatable idea to eat goat meat while in others it is normal.
Here in Belgium goat meat and mutton (sheep meat other than lamb) are sold by at least some halal butchers. So presumably some people of foreign descent do eat it, but not native Europeans.
The same, incidentally, applies to horsemeat.
Horse meat is pretty taboo in most Anglo-Saxon countries, I believe. However here in Belgium it is eaten and considered a delicacy. I have eaten horse meat and it is actually not bad at all.
That said, my experience is that ,even in countries where horse meat is eaten, people who have something to do with horses are generally find the idea of consuming horse meat revolting and unacceptable.
A few years ago there was a big scandal in Europe about horse meat having made its way into processed meat products and ready-made meals.
Not strictly related to the bushmeat trade but this article appeared on the Mongabay a couple of days ago.It is quite thought provoking so I thought I'd share.
My gut feeling is similar to the authors. I genuinely believe there will be future pandemics that arise in Amazonia as a result of current deforestation. Worryingly unlike equatorial Africa and East / South-East Asia it tends to be a bit of a blindspot in terms of the monitoring of infectious zoonotic disease .
Rapid deforestation of Brazilian Amazon could bring next pandemic: Experts
If you shake a tree, you know things will fall out, and some of those things might be real nasty.
Whether is deforestation in the Amazon, commercial bushmeat hunting in African rainforests, wildlife trade and consumption in China or industrial scale animal agriculture and its environmental effects pretty much anywhere in the world, all of those activities pose some degree of risk with regards to zoonotic outbreaks and potentially pandemics. Unfortunately we probably aren't going to be able to totally end any of them, and the most we can do is manage these impacts on our environment as much as possible - which is already a huge challenge in the world we live in today.
Covid-19 is not going to make that any easier. As I have said before, I am not at all sanguine about lessons being learned from Covid-19 and necessary changes being made. Sooner or later it will unfortunately probably be business as usual again to a significant extent.
So far we haven't really seen any zoonotic diseases come out of the Amazon that have epidemic or pandemic potential on the scale of one of the Asian bat coronaviruses, but statistically and logically there must be something out there. That should be one more reason why the exploitation of the Amazon should be of grave concern and should be minimized and managed as much as possible. However with a president who has no concern for the environment and continues to deny the current pandemic is anything to worry about, even in the face of news reports of Covid-19 killing people by the thousands each day, there is pretty much no chance for that happening. So I think we can probably expect a bad spillover to occur in South America somewhere in the upcoming decade.
Finally, an interesting but disturbing note about African bushmeat hunting: at least some of that is commercial and some of that African bushmeat actually makes it to African communities in Western countries. It was exposed a few years ago that African bushmeat, including monkeys, is illegally and secretly sold in Brussels, Belgium. It might happen elsewhere also. I would definitely call that concerning and a potential risk.
) and helps the native environment too! In Australia, we have plentiful:
