Document Type
Article
Publication Date
9-1-2023
Journal / Book Title
Animals
Abstract
The futures of human and nonhuman primates are closely tied in protected areas. Understanding this interconnectedness is especially urgent in Madagascar, one of the world’s most impoverished biodiversity hotspots. Yet, no study has evaluated the relationship between poverty and lemur hunting and consumption using a composite poverty metric that includes health, education, and living standards. To address this gap, and to inform primate conservation practice and policy, we administered annual surveys to 81 households over six consecutive months (September 2018 to March 2019) in a village on the border of Kirindy Mitea National Park, Madagascar. We observed extreme deprivation scores across multiple dimensions of poverty and identified ninety-five percent of households as ‘impoverished’. Of these, three-quarters (77%) of households were identified as being in ‘severe poverty’. One-fifth (19%) of all households hunted lemurs and half (49%) of households consumed lemurs. While poverty eradication is an urgent need in communities around Kirindy Mitea National Park, our findings show no relationship between poverty and lemur hunting and consumption, perhaps due to the lack of variance in poverty. Our results highlight the need to investigate other contributory factors to lemur hunting and consumption locally. Because food insecurity is a known driver of lemur hunting and consumption among the study community, and because domestic meats can be preferred over protected species, we recommend testing the efficacy of livestock interventions near Kirindy Mitea National Park.
DOI
10.3390/ani13182914
MSU Digital Commons Citation
Romanello, Domenic; Thompson, Katharine E.T.; Borgerson, Cortni; Randriamanetsy, Jeanne Mathilde; Andriamavosoloarisoa, Niaina Nirina Mahefa; Andrianantenaina, Mamy Yves; Razafindrahasy, Théofrico Alexander; Surkis, Claire; Wright, Patricia C.; Twiss, Katheryn C.; and Lewis, Rebecca J., "A Nuanced Examination of Primate Capture and Consumption and Human Socio-Economic Well-Being in Kirindy Mitea National Park, Madagascar" (2023). Department of Anthropology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works. 69.
https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/anthropology-facpubs/69
Rights
© 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Published Citation
Romanello, D., Thompson, K. E. T., Borgerson, C., Randriamanetsy, J. M., Andriamavosoloarisoa, N. N. M., Andrianantenaina, M. Y., Razafindrahasy, T. A., Surkis, C., Wright, P. C., Twiss, K. C., & Lewis, R. J. (2023). A nuanced examination of primate capture and consumption and human socio-economic well-being in kirindy mitea national park, madagascar. Animals, 13(18), 2914. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani13182914