Endangered Species

The connection between endangered species and animals being hunted as food is exceptionally political. The term bushmeat has come to refer to the flesh of wild animals, such as elephants and primates, that are not traditionally understood as game animals (deer, moose, elk, rabbits, turkeys, partridges, etc.) and are also not being hunted for sport but for subsistence. Many animals consumed as bushmeat are classified by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species as endangered or critically endangered. However, outside agents pressuring the overhunting of animals include climate change, deforestation due to the lumber industry, and other effects of the commercial exploitation of nature that disproportionally affect groups that have successfully relied on hunting for millennia. Another culprit ...