Urban wild meat consumption across southern forested Cameroon and the limited effect of COVID-19 on wild meat consumption patterns

Overexploitation of wildlife is pervasive in many tropical regions, and in
addition to being a significant conservation and sustainability concern,
it has received global attention given discussions over the origins of
zoonotic disease outbreaks. Where unsustainable, consumption of wild meat
by urban residents has been identified as a major socio-environmental
challenge, given it is a significant driver of wildlife declines. Yet,
information on urban wild meat consumers and possible ways to target
conservation interventions remains lacking. Using one of the largest
datasets of urban wild meat consumers (1,391) collected through structured
questionnaires in 20 towns and cities, we model the demographic,
psychographic, and spatial factors associated with wild meat consumption
patterns in Cameroon. We find that nearly half of the sampled
consumers ate wild meat once per week or more, and find that the
probability of being a frequent consumer was greater among men, those
living in smaller towns, and those who do not consider there to be a link
between eating wild meat and disease. Threatened pangolin species are
highly preferred among urban consumers, and most consumers do not consider
there to be a link between COVID-19 and pangolins. Most respondents had
eaten wild meat since the beginning of COVID-19 and had not reduced their
wild meat consumption due to COVID-19. For the first time, we show that
consumers with beliefs against a link between wild meat consumption and
disease and those with greater income were less likely to have decreased
their wild meat consumption. We identified stakeholders including
teachers and religious/community leaders as potentially appropriate
messengers for demand-reduction campaigns, with television and radio being
the most trusted communication channels among wild meat
consumers. Crucially, our study advances the current scientific
understanding of the factors that influence wild meat consumption
frequency and change due to COVID-19 by urban consumers (particularly
health beliefs and settlement size). We discuss how our results could be
used to inform the design of wild meat demand-reduction interventions to
bring the consumption of wild meat towards sustainability in Cameroon, and
how our approach is applied pan-tropically.