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Road kill in Cameroon
Natural History, Feb, 1997 by Michael McRae
Two years ago in Ouesso, an observer for the Wildlife Conservation Society documented an average of 12,500 pounds of bushmeat moving through the city's markets each week, Duiker was the most prevalent, but also on sale were seven species of monkeys, eight other species of antelope, chimpanzees, elephants, and gorillas (an average of 1.6 per week). A market survey in Gabon put urban consumption of bushmeat at four million pounds a year and about the same in rural areas. Two gorillas and three chimps were openly displayed that year in one of the markets monitored, but more meat was likely being sold under the counter, as both species are technically contraband.
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The notion of finding gorilla or chimpanzee on sale was macabre but fascinating to me, and I had resolved to conduct my own informal market surveys as we moved across Cameroon. In Yaounde, with the train service interrupted, the pickings had been slim at the bushmeat market near the depot: only a few smoked monkeys, a live baby crocodile, a turtle, and a primate of some sort, charred black and cut lengthwise, with half its face frozen in a hideous grimace.
We got warmer up the street at the fetish market, where an ancient woman had arranged on the sidewalk four gorilla skulls, surrounded by shriveled chimpanzee heads, monkey tails, snakeskins, hornbill beaks, feathers, and bottled potions.
But not until Bertoua did I find what I was looking for. Strolling the aisles of the bushmeat section in the city's sprawling bazaar one morning, I came across a vendor selling smoked gorilla meat and doing a brisk business. "The animal came from around Yokadouma," she explained, whisking away the flies. The meat was butchered and unrecognizable as gorilla, but it smelled appetizing, something like smoked lamb or beef, and was very lean. A mound of chunks weighing five ounces cost 250 francs (about 50 cents).
The price was the same as for porcupine, python, giant pangolin, and monkey available in nearby stalls. found that puzzling. If gorilla was such a delicacy, why wasn't it priced accordingly? (In Yaounde, Ammann had told me, it was twice the price of beef.)
"My customers don't express a preference for gorilla," the woman explained. "They buy whatever I have to offer. To them it's all just meat."
With three of us to share transportation costs, Ammann, to my relief, decided against traveling beyond Bertoua by bush taxi. Instead, we hired Alfred and his Toyota. The moment we set out, I noticed that the car's dashboard bore the same aphorism as the jail door in Belabo: La souffrance est un conseil.
The drive to Yokadouma took seven miserable hours. Dust poured in through every crevice. The seat springs prodded my backside. (For relief, I tried sitting on crushed plastic water bottles, to little avail.) We were stopped at police checkpoints in every village. And Alfred drove as if he had a rendezvous with destiny.
Below Bertoua, we entered a lush, logged-out secondary forest that pressed against the one-lane dirt track. Rocketing down the tunnel of greenery, the forest a blur, we felt as if we were slipping into another dimension. We encountered a group of hunters. The oldest, a man of seventy, was happily crocked. He carried a homemade shotgun with a removable barrel held to the stock with a length of inner tube and bragged about having shot fifty gorillas with it.
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