After observing the slew of bushmeat related incidents in 2020, the “Say NO to Bushmeat Campaign” was born out of the need to facilitate awareness among the people about the bushmeat trade which was gaining a fast foothold in Sri Lanka.
Snaring seems to be the leading cause of mortality among wildlife poaching cases recorded by our team. The sad truth is that most of the animals that get caught to snares are not the intended target as evident by the number of leopard and fishing cat deaths recorded.
However, it is important to understand that low income communities around the country rely on bushmeat to provide sustenance for their families. As a result, our campaign is aimed at Sri Lanka’s local and foreign tourists, who travel to remote areas in the country and seek the coveted bushmeat menu.
Together with our partners at Leopocon Sri Lanka and The Parrotfish Collective we hope to address this issue by raising awareness through social media and print media platforms. The long term goal of this campaign is to increase the engagement of civilian scientists and by that to reduce the demand for bushmeat, in an attempt to save the fragile biodiversity of Sri Lanka before time runs out.
As the famous saying goes, when the buying stops, the killing can too.
The Problem with Bushmeat
Poaching for bushmeat, other commercial reasons and illegal killing of wildlife due to the human animal conflict haven’t been halted during lockdown, resulting in an alarming number of deaths by…
