Transforming wild African herbivores into edible meat for local communities. Sustainable use of impala (Aepyceros melampus) in the CAMPFIRE Program, Zimbabwe

Wild African herbivores have, for a long time, been considered as a potential source of substantial amounts of nutritional protein (4, 6, 10). Plans to harvest the considerable animal diversity of the African savannahs have been numerous, but only few have succeeded in the sustained transformation of wild biomass into edible meat (5, 9). Public health precautions necessary for the organized production of large amounts of meat, added to the technical requirements of harvesting free-ranging nondomesticated animals, have more often than not rendered such operations economically or politically not viable. When it takes place, meat production from wild animals is often a side activity of the ecological control of prolific species. Notable exceptions are the exemplary cases of the ongoing supply of antelope meat as a quality product to high paying markets: springbok (Antidorcas marsupialis) meat exported from South Africa and Namibia to Europe, meat of various herbivores sold to restaurants in Kenya, the elephant (Loxodonta africana) and buffalo (Syncerus caffer) abattoir and canning factory in Skukuza (Krüger Park, South Africa) that supplied the local market, the cropping of buffalo in the Zambezi delta in the late seventies, the culling of hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius) in the Luangwa River (Zambia) for the benefit of local communities, the sustained harvesting of a variety of herbivores in the Nazinga Ranch (Burkina Faso) for the benefit of local communities, and the cropping of impala (Aepyceros melampus) and Thomson’s gazelle (Gazella thomsoni) in Kenya (1).