As a luxury bus driver on the Shagamu-Benin Road for more than 20 years, Ken Okoye is very familiar with the various restaurants along the route.
“I really don’t want any of them to experience what I went through on my first trip on that axis. I was served dog meat when I asked for bush meat. It was a delicious soup but I don’t eat dog. I vomited throughout the day,” Okoye narrated.
As much as some people love bush meat, many of them cannot name the animal they are eating and the restaurant owners are not even helping matters.
“Most times, I don’t know the animal our hunters supply us especially if it has been cut into pieces. We just tell our customers it is grass cutter or antelope because that is what many of them are familiar with,” said Moji (surname withheld), whose restaurant is very popular in the Gbagada area of Lagos.
Bush meat comes from non-domesticated animals, reptiles, amphibians, and birds hunted for food in forests. It is also called wild or game meat. It used to be a delicacy but when Ebola disease came up, its consumption reduced.
The question is, which animals can be categorised as bush meat. Even with the definition of bush meat, many people still sell vulture and dog as bush meat.
The animals
The most popular animals hunted for bush meat are monkey, grass cutter, antelope, kangaroo, snake, squirrel, and bush rat.
But Lekan Oderinde, an indigene of Oyo insisted that there is no limit to the animals hunted for meat. “It all depends on where you are. When I was growing up, I remember my father coming home with giraffe and even cheetah.”
Good side
Bush meat is very expensive in the city unlike some remote areas where it is the main source of protein for people.
The animals are not easy to come by. Lovers of bush meat said the taste, especially of antelope and grass cutter, is very distinct.
However, according to Moji, it must be well handled to get the best out of it.
Bush meat is mostly smoked before selling. But some people prefer to buy them fresh because “you can’t be too sure how long the smoked one has been exposed at the market stall,” Oderinde said.
The animals are hunted with guns or traps thus smoked animals should be thoroughly cleaned because bullet pellets may be in them.
“Unlike other types of meat, bush meat is best served in soups with little or no tomatoes, such as vegetable soup, and eaten with fufu or pounded yam,” Moji explained.
Warning
Some diseases have been traced to bush meats. The Ebola virus, for which the primary host is suspected to be fruit bats, has been linked to bush meat.
“Animals used as bush meat may also carry other diseases such as smallpox, chicken pox, tuberculosis, measles, rubella, rabies, yellow fever and yaws,” said Femi Oladele, a veterinary doctor.
People get infected because some portions of the meat may not be completely cooked. Improper preparation of any infected animal may be fatal.
“I think the sale of bush meat should be outlawed,” advocated Sam Ihejirika, a conservationist.
“Most of these animals are endangered and are becoming rare, not to talk of the extinct species. By the time we create an imbalance in the ecosystem we should be ready for a corresponding imbalance the ecosystem will have on us.”