Bushmeat is meat sourced from wild animals, typically hunted in tropical forests and savannas for human consumption. The term most commonly refers to wild animal meat from Africa, but it also applies to wild meat from Asia and South America. Bushmeat has been a food source for communities in these regions for thousands of years, but the modern scale of the trade raises serious concerns about disease transmission and species extinction.
Which Animals Are Hunted as Bushmeat
The range of species involved is enormous. In West and Central Africa, where most of the global bushmeat supply originates, the most commonly hunted animals include duikers (small forest antelopes), cane rats, porcupines, bush pigs, and various monkey species such as guenons, mangabeys, and colobus monkeys. Great apes, including chimpanzees and gorillas, are also killed for meat despite international protections.
Beyond mammals, the trade extends to reptiles (crocodiles, tortoises, snakes, and lizards), carnivores like civets and genets, and even invertebrates such as giant African land snails and insect larvae. Pangolins, the world’s most trafficked mammals, are hunted across both Africa and Asia, where all eight species face severe population declines. In South America, large rodents related to the African cane rat are among the animals commonly taken.
Many of these species are protected under international wildlife treaties. All tortoises, all sea turtles, all crocodilians, and all great apes carry formal protections. Yet enforcement in remote forest areas remains difficult, and demand continues to outpace regulation.
Why People Rely on Bushmeat
For millions of people in rural tropical communities, wild animal meat is not a luxury or a curiosity. It is a primary source of protein where livestock farming is impractical and refrigeration scarce. In parts of the Congo Basin, bushmeat provides more than half of the animal protein in local diets. Economic factors also drive the trade: bushmeat can be cheaper than farmed meat in local markets, and hunting provides income in areas with few alternatives.
There is also a cultural dimension. In diaspora communities across Europe and North America, bushmeat carries deep social and culinary significance. Smoked or dried wild meat is sometimes imported illegally as a connection to home. This international demand, layered on top of subsistence hunting, has transformed what was once a local food practice into a commercial industry worth billions of dollars annually.
The Link to Infectious Disease Outbreaks
Bushmeat is one of the most direct ways that viruses jump from wild animals into humans. The highest risk comes not from eating cooked meat but from the steps before cooking: hunting, butchering, and handling raw carcasses. When a hunter skins a freshly killed animal, any virus in the animal’s blood, organs, or body fluids can enter through cuts, scratches, or mucous membranes. This blood-to-blood contact is the primary pathway for what scientists call zoonotic spillover.
The list of pathogens traced to bushmeat contact is striking. HIV-1, the virus responsible for the global AIDS pandemic, originated from a closely related virus in chimpanzees. HIV-2 came from a different primate virus carried by sooty mangabeys. Both crossed into humans through repeated exposure during hunting and butchering. Ebola virus has been linked to contact with infected wildlife, with fruit bats identified as a likely reservoir. The 2014 West Africa Ebola outbreak, the largest in history, spread person to person after the virus initially entered the human population through contact with infected animals.
Other viruses connected to bushmeat activities include monkeypox, Marburg virus, rabies, and simian foamy virus. Bacterial infections from anthrax, leptospirosis, and salmonella have also been documented. An analysis of 335 emerging infectious disease events between 1940 and 2004 identified four that were directly driven by bushmeat, and all four were caused by viruses: Ebola, HIV-1, monkeypox, and SARS. That every bushmeat-linked outbreak involved a virus, rather than a bacterium or parasite, suggests that viral spillover is the most dangerous consequence of the trade from a public health standpoint.
301 Mammal Species at Risk of Extinction
The scale of hunting now threatens the survival of entire species. A comprehensive analysis using data from the International Union for Conservation of Nature found that 301 terrestrial mammal species are threatened with extinction primarily because of hunting by humans for food and medicinal products. That number spans primates, ungulates, bats, rodents, and carnivores across multiple continents.
The problem is sometimes called the “empty forest syndrome.” Tropical forests can appear intact from above while the large animals that once lived in them have been hunted out entirely. This has cascading effects on the ecosystem. Many of the species targeted as bushmeat are seed dispersers, meaning their disappearance changes which plants can reproduce and where forests regenerate. Losing a primate population doesn’t just reduce biodiversity; it reshapes the forest itself over decades.
Great apes are especially vulnerable because they reproduce slowly. A female chimpanzee typically raises one infant every five to six years. Even modest hunting pressure can push a local population into decline that takes generations to reverse, if recovery is possible at all.
Legal Status and Import Bans
Importing bushmeat into the United States is illegal. The CDC explicitly prohibits bringing wild animal meat into the country, and the penalty for doing so can reach $250,000. These restrictions exist because of both the disease risk and the wildlife conservation concerns tied to the trade.
Similar bans are in place across the European Union, where customs officials at major airports periodically conduct seizures of smoked and dried bushmeat in passenger luggage. Despite these efforts, enforcement is difficult. Bushmeat is often dried, smoked, or otherwise processed in ways that make species identification challenging without laboratory testing. Studies at airports in Paris, Brussels, and other major cities have found significant volumes of illegal wild meat entering through personal luggage, often mislabeled or hidden among other food items.
Internationally, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) regulates cross-border trade in many of the animals involved. Species listed under CITES Appendix I, which includes all great apes and sea turtles, cannot be traded commercially at all. Species under Appendix II and III face varying levels of restriction. But CITES governs international trade, not domestic hunting within a country’s borders, so national laws and local enforcement determine what happens on the ground in the regions where bushmeat is actually harvested.
Why the Problem Is Hard to Solve
Efforts to reduce the bushmeat trade run into a fundamental tension: the same practice that threatens species and spreads disease also feeds people. Simply banning hunting without providing alternative protein sources and livelihoods can deepen poverty and food insecurity in communities that have few other options. Conservation programs that have shown the most promise tend to combine wildlife protection with practical alternatives, such as small-scale fish farming, livestock programs, or community-managed hunting zones that set sustainable harvest limits.
Urbanization adds another layer of complexity. As cities in West and Central Africa grow, demand for bushmeat increasingly comes from urban consumers who can afford to pay premium prices, not from subsistence hunters. This commercial demand incentivizes large-scale hunting operations that go far beyond what local ecosystems can sustain. Addressing the trade effectively means tackling both rural food security and urban consumer demand, two very different problems requiring very different solutions.