Do you plan to take a bite out of wildlife this Christmas? An agouti stew or a leg of deer? Think twice. Your plate will be filled with animal cruelty, extinction, drug-and human trafficking, zoological disease and crime.
Buying wildmeat is consumerism disguised as tradition. What was once a way of life, a subsistence activity to put protein on the table, is now an international trade worth millions of dollars.
Buying wildmeat threatens borders. Unless you hunted your own wildmeat you have no idea of when, where or how it was caught.
Trinidad & Tobago's appetite for forest animals has long outstripped local supply and a large percentage of wildmeat is smuggled from abroad. If you buy wildmeat you must assume that it is illegally imported.
Buying wildmeat exports our bad habits. We have destroyed our habitat and mismanaged species so that local wildlife stocks no longer support local demand.
Rather than live within our means we export our unsustainable lifestyle. This is no different to Western countries dumping toxic waste in Africa.
Buying wildmeat supports the crime epidemic that rips apart communities in T&T.
Much of it comes from Venezuela. The boats that bring in wildmeat are the same ones that bring in the guns, illegal immigrants, drugs and prostitutes.
Buying wildmeat is exploitation. In the Orinoco Delta, the indigenous Warao hunt to supply Trinidadian traders.
It is only 45 minutes by boat from Cedros but the Orinoco Delta is another world.
The Warao are hunter-gatherers whose lives have changed little from pre-Columbian times.
They master survival in their ecosystem, but lack the skills needed in a modern economy.
Trinidadian traders take advantage of this and buy agoutis for TT$20, which are sold for TT$200 and up in Trinidad.
They make at least 1,000 per cent profit. It is like trading glass beads for land.
Buying wildmeat threatens livelihoods.The Warao in the Orinoco Delta number about 20,000.
The wildmeat trade means that tens of thousands of Trinidadian and Tobagonian bellies feed off an ecosystem that the Waroa people depend on for survival.
They have no groceries to shop in, no chicken farms to supply them with cheap, plentiful protein.
Buying wildmeat can result in overhunting. It threatens the livelihoods and food security of the Waroa.
Buying wildmeat is part of the sixth extinction. There is little regulation of hunting in T&T and even less in the Orinoco Delta. Wildlife species are in retreat globally, T&T and Venezuela are no different.
There have been five mass extinctions of species over the last half a billion years, when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Scientists monitor what they say is the sixth extinction in progress. They predict that the sixth extinction will be the most devastating event since the astroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs.
Humans cause this rapid extinction event.
We destroy habitat, overconsume and change the chemical composition of the atmosphere.
We are changing the world faster than species can adapt.
The rain forests from which we source our wildmeat are among the last of nature's refuges on the planet. Buying wildmeat endangers public health. Smuggled wildmeat is not inspected for zoonoses, these are diseases that can be transmitted from animals to humans.
The hemorrhagic Ebola virus that gripped the world in fear is thought to have crossed over from bats to humans by eating wildmeat.
The armadillo, or tatu, is a known vector for leprosy. This has not been established to be the case in T&T, but Ministry of Health records do show that there are about 30 new cases of leprosy in T&T annually.
Illegal importation of tatus can introduce leprosy to the local population, if this is not the case already.
Buying wildmeat promotes animal cruelty. Hunting with dogs is banned in many countries because it is deemed to be cruel and non-selective.
In Trinidad & Tobago and Venezuela hunting with dogs is practiced.
After a terrifying chase the game animals are mauled to death by a pack of dogs.
They experience this in the same way that you or I would experience being torn to bits.
Dogs don't know what species are protected and will give chase to anything that moves.
Hunting with guns is not much better. Often an animal is not killed but merely wounded by a gunshot.
Wounded, they escape and die agonizing deaths. The lucky ones may continue to live maimed lives.
Wildmeat for Christmas is a tradition but traditions must change when they are no longer sustainable.
Commercial hunting can only be sustainable if wildlife is scientifically managed, with a system of quotas and tags that allow the origin of wildmeat to be traced, and if hunters are trained to kill humanely.
Give wildlife the gift of life this Christmas. Serve sustainability instead of extinction, crime, cruelty and exploitation. There are options like cruelty-free, free range meat and going meatless.