Abstract:
Detection of illegal bush-meat in Africa has over the years relied on morphological
identification technique, which is less effective due to post-hunting procedures. Therefore,
the current study aimed at assessing bush-meat dynamics in trans-boundary areas of
Tanzania and Kenya in the western part of Serengeti ecosystem. A cross-sectional design
with two different methodologies was used. First, semi-structured questionnaires were
administered to collect information on socio-demographic and other social factors leading
to illegal bush-meat hunting, preference and consumption. Secondly, to augment the
information obtained from the questionnaire, qPCR-HRM analysis was employed by using
three different molecular markers 16s, Cytb and COI for molecular identification of
assumed 138 collected sundried bush-meat samples. The results indicated that hunting
occurs mostly in the dry season primarily using snares, and wildebeest was revealed to be
the most hunted. Furthermore, young demonstrated high bush-meat consumption whereas
immigrants showed high bush-meat preference. Likewise, highly educated young
respondents indicated to have a high consumption and preference than less educated old
respondents. Regarding molecular identification, 20 species were identified altogether,
with zebra constituting the majority (n=51, 49.5%). It is recommended that high
surveillance against poaching is needed by wildlife authorities during dry season; proper
disposal of the unworthy wire cables by TANESCO; sensitization of both primary and
secondary school students on legal harvesting of wildlife were made. Other
recommendations focused on the need for proper execution of HRM procedures for bush-
meat identification; and that for bush-meat samples to be accepted in court of law as
exhibits should be analyzed using molecular procedures that proved to be reliable.
