Bushmeat - Still A Very Real Problem
Just a few weeks ago, monkey carcasses were found in the luggage of a man who went through Customs at Dulles airport. Bushmeat is illegal in the US, so the meat was confiscated and the man was let go. According to The Bushmeat Project website , "People pay a premium to eat more great apes each year than are now kept in all the zoos and laboratories of the world. If the slaughter continues at its current pace, the remaining wild apes in Africa will be gone within the next fifteen to fifty years. With them will vanish most of the equatorial rain forest, and the cultures of indigenous people who have lived there for millennia." Some would argue that bushmeat is a necessary evil to feed starving human populations, yet the reality is that bushmeat is a health hazzard to those who consume it. Many diseases can be transmitted cross-species. Non-human primates (apes and monkeys) are susceptible to many of the same diseases humans are. Hunting, butchering and eating bushmeat pla...