2.3 Subsistence hunting by campesinos

2.3.1 Game animals
2.3.2 Order of importance
2.3.3 Nutritional intake from subsistence hunting
2.3.4 Scope and impact of subsistence hunting

Campesinos are the main wildlife users in Latin America. The heading "subsistence hunting" embraces various forms of wildlife utilization for the purpose of procuring meat to feed the family. In forest areas it overlaps hunting as practised by indigenous people. Campesinos, however, generally have better access to alternate forms of protein and a different cultural and economic context. Subsistence hunting can also become commercial hunting when a good part of the product is sold to third parties. The need to hunt for food, implicit in the term "subsistence hunting", may be a very authentic feature of daily life in rural Latin America, but it is sometimes used as a pretext to hunt for reasons of expediency or for profit.

The subsistence hunter may be a farmer, a smallholder, a settler, a farm worker, a fisherman, a miner, etc. all linked by the fact that they are poor and rural. Subsistence hunters usually hunt in a restricted area close to home (according to Becker (42), few hunt further than 2 km from home and Smith (543) estimates the radius of action of the campesino hunter at 5 km). They may use firearms, machetes or clubs, although a 16 calibre shotgun, often used with great expertise, is more common. They may go out solely to hunt, day or night, but they may also blend hunting with other activities, taking their weapon along to the field, ready for any opportunity that may arise. The campesino hunter is usually quite unaware of the legal and administrative wildlife regulations, hunting a great variety of game year-round but preferring big and/or desirable animals, and those which can be captured by hand or with some simple tool.

2.3.1 Game animals

Subsistence hunting varies greatly from one region to another depending on factors such as habitat, land use, current status of wildlife and the cultural factors. Although subsistence hunting is ubiquitous in Latin America, information on it is scarce and mostly anecdotal. The most specific studies cover only the forest areas of Peru and Brazil (32, 42, 476, 477, 543). There is also data from an acculturated Pemón community in Venezuela which much resembles the data on subsistence hunting by campesinos (447).

As Table 8 shows, indigenous hunters take many more species than subsistence hunters, but so far as the preferred species are concerned, the targets are basically identical: armadillos (Dasypus spp.), some primates (Alouatta, Cebus), the tapir (Tapirus terrestris), peccaries (Tayassu pecari, T. tajacu), deer (Mazama americana and in some regions also M. gouazoubira), paca (Agouti paca) and the agoutis (Dasyprocta, various species). The main birds hunted are the cracids (Penelope, Mitu), and, of the reptiles, the tortoises (Geochelone spp.). The information refers to hunting in small isolated rural communities in forest areas and is therefore not very representative of the campesino hunter in more densely populated and developed areas.

Table 8. Terrestrial vertebrates hunted or captured by local communities in forest areas. Meaning of symbols: + = genus mentioned in list; ++ = genus particularly important. Localities and source of information: 1. Rio Pachitea, Peru (476); 2. Rio Ucayali, Peru (477); 3. Agrovila Nova Fronteira, Brazil (543); 4. Agrovila Leonardo da Vinci, Brazil (543); 6. Rio Aripuana, Dardanelos, Brazil (332); 7. Mato Grosso, Brazil (42); 8. Rio Paragua, Periquera, Venezuela (448); 9. Southeastern Mexico (252); 10. Barlovento, Venezuela (130)

Genus	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Frequency(%)
Didelphis										+	110
Myrmecophaga		+	+							+	20
Tamandua							+			+	20
Dasypus	+	+	+	+	++	+	++	+	+	+	100
Euphractus							+				10
Priodontes					+					+	20
Callithrix						+					10
Alouatta	+	+	+		+				+	+	60
Ateles	+	+							+		30
Callicebus						+					10
Cebus	+	+			+	+		+		+	60
Chiropotes						+					10
Lagothrix						+					10
Pitechia	+	+									20
Nasua	+					+					20
Potos										+	10
Lutra	+	+									20
Pteronura	+	+						+			30
Felis	+	+	+			+	+		+	+	70
Tapirus	+	+	++	++		++	+	++	+	+	70
Tayassu pecari	+	++	++	++		++	+	++	+		80
Tayassu tajacu	++	+	+	+	+	++	+	++	++	+	100
Odocoileus								+	++	+	30
Mazama	++	+	++	++	+	+	++	+	+	+	100
Coendou										+	10
Hydrochaeris	+							+		+	30
Agouti	++	++	+	+	+	+	+	+	++	++	100
Dasyprocta	+	+	+	+	++	+	++	+	+		100
Sylvilagus			+					+	+	+	40
Sciurus										+	10
Rhea							+				10
Tinamous					+			+	+	+	40
Crypturellus	+	+	+				+		+	+	60
Rhynchotus							+				10
Phalacrocorax						+					10
Butorides						+					10
Dendrocygna								+			10
Cairina								+			10
Ortalis	+	+						+	+	+	50
Penelope	+	+	+	+		+	+	+	+	+	90
Pipile							+	+			20
Crax								+	+	+	30
Mitu	+	+	+	+		+					50
Odontophorus			+						+		20
Psophia			+			+		+			30
Aramides					+					+	20
Cairima							+				10
Columba							+	+		++	30
Columbina			+		+						20
Leptotila										+	10
Ara						+		+		+	30
Pionius				+		+				+	30
Amazona						+		+		+	30
Ramphastos							+				10
Celeus			+								10
Psarcolinus								+		+	20
Turdus										+	10
Podocnemis	+					+					20
Platemys						+					10
Geochelone	+	+	+	+	+			++		+	70
Caiman								+	+	+	30
Iguana								+		+	20
Tupinambis							+			+	20
Snakes										+	10

Other species may become locally important or more desirable when the preferred species are scarce. This is true of the opossum (Didelphis marsupialis), which, though not a favourite, is of some importance in local diets because it is abundant (98, 130, 258, 336, 382). In the Colombian and Venezuelan llanos, the savannah armadillo Dasypus sabanicola (maximum weight 2 kg) is fairly abundant, easy to capture and widely used as a food (203, 440). Felids are hunted down as predators and for pelts but sometimes also for food. Other carnivores considered edible are Nasua nasua, Potos flavus and the spectacled bear (Tremarctos ornatus). In the Amazon basin, the manatee (Trichechus inunguis) is traditionally very important in the diet as is Trichechus manatus in coastal Caribbean areas and in the Orinoco basin (160, 311, 337, 563). Current intake is quite reduced, however, no doubt because manatees are scarce now. Among the rodents, porcupine (Coendu prehensilis) is eaten in some areas of Venezuela (130, 460, Ojasti, personal observation), Lagostomus in the pampas, Kerodon and Cercomys in Brazil (30) and Cavia in many areas (108, 165, 432, Ojasti, personal observation).

The Leporidae, which are native to northern Latin America (Lepus callosus, L. californicus, Sylvilagus floridanus) and introduced in the south (Lepus capensis, Oryctolagus cuniculus), are a frequent target of subsistence hunters in semi-arid regions (63, 336, 362, 410, 450).

Web-footed birds, particularly whistling ducks (Dendrocygna), are especially important in coastal regions and flooded llanos, and are often caught by hand in large quantities during the moulting period when they are flightless (440, 536). A great variety of waterfowl are hunted in the altiplano lagoons, such as Fulica gigantea, F. ardesica, F. americana, Gallinula chloropus and various species of Anas (163, 212). The subsistence hunter prefers birds, chicks and eggs, which can be taken by hand or with some simple tool, and is unlikely to hunt the smaller birds which have to be shot.

Among the neotropical reptiles, the most hounded by subsistence hunters are the turtles. The main river species taken are Podocnemis expansa and P. unifilis by Amazon and Orinoco river dwellers (40, 79, 391, 437, 542), and P. vogli in the plains (395, 492). Kinosternum scorpioides, despite its small size, is quite prized in Brazil (79, 105). The most commonly eaten lizards are the green iguana (Iguana iguana) and the rock (or brown) iguana (Cteneosaura similis), particularly in Central America and Mexico and in the semi-arid regions (98, 191, 207, 400, 508). Collecting iguana and turtle eggs is a very widespread practice.

2.3.2 Order of importance

The sole numerical data come from small rural settlements in forest areas. These data can be used to compare wildlife utilization by indigenous communities in similar environments, but this is not usually of much use for a general picture of subsistence hunting in Latin America. Most statistics (576, 577) come from surveys comparing the frequency of consumption for the different species, and the rest from the number of kills brought in to the village.

Numerically speaking (Table 9), the list is headed by land turtles (Geochelone carbonaria, G. denticulata), the peccary (Tayassu pecari), and birds as a group, followed by medium-bodied terrestrial mammals, agoutis (Dasyprocta), armadillos (Dasypus novemcinctus, D. kappleri), the collared peccary (T. tajacu), primates as a group, paca and the deer (Mazama americana). Tapir kills are low for all groups.

Table 9. Subsistence hunting in selected rural communities: relative importance of the various game animals by the percentage of each in the total kill. Sites: 1. Río Pachitea, Peru, 181 inhab. (476); 2. Rio Ucayali, Peru, 2 919 inhab. (477); 3. Agrovila Nova Fronteira, Brazil, 204 inhab. (543); 4. Agrovila Leonardo da Vinci, Brazil, 179 inhab. (543); 5. Agrovila Coco Chato, Brazil, 251 inhab. (543); 6. Rio Aripuana, Dardanelos, Brazil, 638 inhab. (32); 7. Rio Paragua, Periquera, Venezuela, 350 inhab. (447). Ext. = Species apparently locally extinct

Species or group	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	Average
Geochelone	43.1	21.8	10.0	18.8	3.2	-	34.0	18.7
Tayassu pecari	0.5	6.2	24.8	27.2	Ext.	55.0	14.2	18.3
Birds	12.5	13.7	20.0	3.7	26.2	18.1	15.5	15.7
Dasyprocta	9.5	8.6	6.7	8.9	30.8	1.1	1.2	9.5
Dasypus	2.0	7.5	2.9	15.7	28.9	2.3	2.2	8.8
Tayassu tajacu	5.5	7.0	3.8	9.4	1.8	11.4	10.4	7.0
Primates	10.9	20.5	0.5	-	0.9	7.5	0.1	5.8
Agouti paca	10.3	10.9	3.8	5.2	5.4	0.3	4.5	5.8
Mazama	3.5	3.3	7.1	7.9	2.3	2.0	7.5	4.8
Tapirus	0.3	0.5	3.8	3.2	Ext.	1.5	3.2	1.8
Hydrochaeris	1.4	-	-	-	-	-	4.5	0.8
Caiman	-	-	-	-	-	-	2.5	0.4
Carnivora	0.2	-	1.4	-	-	0.3	-	0.3
Myrmecophagidae	-	-	0.5	-	-	-	-	0.1
Others	0.3	-	14.71	-	0.5	0.5	0.2	2.3
Total	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0

¹ Mainly rabbits (Sylvilagus brasiliensis).

The remaining entries are sporadically hunted by only a few communities. The big game mammals (peccaries, tapirs, deer and capybara) constitute roughly one-third of the total kill (Table 9).

Table 10 transformed the original data into kg/yr/caput units for a careful comparison of sites and species. The first set of data (576) so exceeded the rest and presented such an exceptional situation as to possibly bias the remaining data, and was therefore not reckoned into the averages. Peccary (Tayassu pecari) was heavily predominant at 42 percent of the total, as were large game mammals in general at 79 percent in terms of weight. Medium-bodied mammals (paca, primates, armadillos and agoutis) were intermediate, whereas birds as a group barely weighed in at 2.2 percent. The remaining species are little used by the communities in the study.

A comparison of kills per species brings out the relative similarity of the data from the different communities, an indication that the same wildlife is being similarly utilized at distant points of the compass. This is borne out by the high correlation coefficients for the numerical order (W=0.594, X²=51.02^***) and weight (W=0.784, X²=57.03^***).

A comparison of wildlife utilization patterns by indigenous peoples and campesinos highlights the identical order for the three main species: Tayassu pecari, Tapirus terrestris and Tayassu tajacu, (Tables 6 and 10). The order of importance is similar for both campesinos and indigenous people, in accordance with Spearman's coefficient of rank correlation: r₈=0.561^* for the numerical order, 0.654^** for the weight. Campesinos, however, proportionately hunt more big game animals (Table 11) and fewer primates and birds. Levels of medium-bodied terrestrial mammals and reptiles are fairly similar, but within the reptile group, campesinos capture only Geochelone, whereas the main indigenous reptile target is Caiman. Generally speaking, the campesino subsistence hunter seems more selective than his indigenous counterpart, and is less apt to use arboreal fauna. This agrees with Leopold's (336) findings for Mexico: that the subsistence hunter tends to overexploit big game and underexploit the smaller fauna.

2.3.3 Nutritional intake from subsistence hunting

This specific research (Table 12) brought out a significant variation in nutritional intake from subsistence hunting. Meat consumption by weight varies from 3.6 to 299 g/day/person, with an average of 72.3 g; protein intake ranged from 0.7 to 45.9, averaging 12.9 g/day/caput. This is barely one-third of the respective figures for indigenous peoples (Table 7), and constitutes a statistically significant difference (t=2.63^**). Only in Rio Pachitea (476) does hunting cover the daily protein requirements, whereas in the village of Coco Chato, coverage is a bare 2 percent. Excluding these two extremes, hunting supplies roughly one-fifth of the daily protein requirement of campesino villages in tropical forest areas, the remainder being supplied by fish and domestic animals (poultry and pigs).

Table 10. Subsistence hunting in selected rural communities: relative importance of the different game animals in terms of weight: kg/yr/caput. Sites 2 to 7 were used to calculate averages. Sites: Rio Pachitea, Peru, 181 inhab. (476); 2. Rio Ucayali, Peru, 2 919 inhab. (477); 3. Agrovila Nova Fronteira, Brazil, 204 inhab. (543); 4. Agrovila Leonardo da Vinci, Brazil, 179 inhab. 179 inhab. (543); 5. Agrovila Coco Chato, Brazil 251 inhab. (543); 6. Rio Aripuana, Dardanelos, Brazil, 638 inhab. (32); 7. Río Paragua, Periquera, Venezuela, 350 inhab. (447). Ext. = Species apparently locally extinct.

Species or group	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	Average kg/yr/spec	% of total
Tayassu pecan	6.63	6.80	5.61	8.69	Ext.	28.6	4.42	9.02	42.1
Tapirus	14.59	3.25	5.78	3.65	Ext.	4.66	5.55	3.82	17.8
Tayassu tajacu	35.39	4.06	0.54	1.51	0.23	3.95	1.68	2.00	9.3
Mazama	37.15	2.60	2.03	2.53	0.43	1.30	2.61	1.92	9.0
Agouti paca	35.14	4.77	0.29	0.41	0.29	0.06	0.38	1.03	4.8
Geochelone	36.77	3.17	0.30	0.76	0.07	-	1.17	0.91	4.2
Primates	14.02	2.99	0.02	-	0.03	1.16	0.003	0.70	3.3
Dasypus	4.39	1.64	0.08	0.65	0.65	0.39	0.08	0.58	2.7
Dasyprocta	12.20	1.87	0.16	0.35	0.65	0.08	0.03	0.52	2.4
Birds	5.33	0.99	0.13	0.10	0.06	1.27	0.29	0.47	2.2
Hydrochaeris	11.60	-	-	-	-	-	1.58	0.26	1.2
Carnivora	0.20	-	0.57	-	-	0.12	-	0.11	0.5
Caiman	-	-	-	-	-	-	0.28	0.05	0.2
Myrmecophagidae	-	-	0.07	-	-	-	-	0.01	0.1
Others	0.11		0.16			0.04	0.01	04	0.2
Total	213.52	32.14	15.74	18.65	2.41	41.63	18.08	21.44	100.0

Table 11. Game as food: proportion of the diet in rural and indigenous communities

Source: Tables 6, 7, 10 and 11

	Number of animals		Total weight
Item	Indigenous	Campesinos	Indigenous	Campesinos
Big game	12.2 %	32.7 %	50.2 %	79.4 %
Primates	14.8	5.8	11.2	3.3
Medium-bodied-terrestrial
mammals	27.6	24.5	19.8	10.5
Birds	31.1	15.7	9.0	2.2
Reptiles	5.2	19.1	5.4	4.4
Other	5.1	2.3	4.0	0.2

Table 12. Game as food: proportion of protein intake from subsistence hunting in selected rural Latin American communities in terms of fresh edible meat (total weight/2), and protein (fresh weight/5), in g/day/caput

Region, country and reference		Fresh meat	Protein
Río Pachitea, Peru (Pierret and Dourojeanni, 476)
	a) hunting registry	299	49.5
	b) consumer surveys	153	20.6
Río Ucayali, Peru (Pierret and Dourojeanni, 477)
	a) hunting registry	35	7.1
	b) consumer surveys	52	10.4
Jenaro Herrera, Peru (Rios et al., 496)		75.8	15.2
Nova Fronteira, Brazil (Smith, 543)		26	5.2
Leonardo da Vinci, Brazil (Smith, 543)		31	6.2
Coco Chato, Brazil (Smith, 543)		3.6	0.7
Rio Aripuana, Dardanelos (Ayres and Ayres, 32)		22	4.4
Rio Paragua, Venezuela (Ojasti et al., 447)		25	5.2
		72.3/33	12.1/6.6

Table 13. Ratio of answers to question 19: "Wildlife is frequently shared by a) rural subsistence hunters and b) urban sport hunters. Which should have greater access or more right to game resources and why?". A total of 41 experts replied

Replies		No.	%
	a) Rural subsistence hunters	24	61
	b) Urban sport hunters	3	7
Both equally entitled		6	16
Each utilizes different resources		2	5
Depends on the individual case		5	12
Total		42	100

2.3.4 Scope and impact of subsistence hunting

There seem to be very few studies on wildlife use by rural populations in long-established agricultural areas, though these no doubt constitute the majority of cases. But it would not be unreasonable to assume that hunting is more sporadic there, and confined to species tolerant of hunting and environmental modification, such as Didelphis marsupialis, Dasypus novemcinctus, Tayassu tajacu, Odocoileus virginianus, Dasycropta, Sylvilagus floridanus, Dendrocygna, Ortalis, Ctenosaura, etc. The deer Odocoileus virginianus is probably one of the most valuable subsistence hunting species in the northern part of the region stretching from Peru to Suriname (81, 238, 245, 252, 258, 336, 384).

Subsistence hunting has legal status in several countries and is tacitly accepted or tolerated in others. Constituting the most widespread form of wildlife utilization in the neotropics (Table 4), it, together with deforestation (307, 422, 500, 597), has the greatest negative impact on wildlife. Any analysis of subsistance hunting must weigh two contrasting factors into the balance, making it hard to adopt an unequivocal stance. On the one hand, it does have the most solid justification from the social standpoint as a major contributor to the diet of chronically underfed rural people. Here, strikingly, 61 percent of those replying to the questionnaire believed that rural users should have priority access (Table 13). But on the other, the very ubiquity of the practice, which is constant, frequent and involves vast numbers of people, is gradually impoverishing the fauna and destroying the resource itself (123, 238, 252, 258, 269, 385, 404, 438, 443, 536, 573).

The total number of subsistence hunters is not known, but the figure is thought to be very high. Gondelles et al. (238) estimate roughly one million for Venezuela; if the proportion of hunters within the rural population were similar in other countries of tropical America, the total would run to some 20 or 30 million for all of Latin America. Unlike indigenous people, hunting is necessary but not absolutely essential for campesinos, who do have other protein resources. Demographic patterns now indicate that they are becoming much less dependent on the availability of game. What all this suggests is a growing number of users exploiting an increasingly scarce (and in future even less certain) resource.

The fact is that widespread subsistence hunting in rural Latin America can be seen as an expression of underdevelopment for the implicit historical, social, economic and political reasons. While rational management models must be found, they will remain of very limited use until we come to grips with the basic fact that the rural sector has been sidelined in terms of economics, education, food, land tenure, family planning and the like. Promoting the breeding of domestic or wild animals might conceivably relieve hunting pressure on wild populations in the medium term and allow their recovery (17, 123, 163, 404, 432, 573). Another approach would be to ensure that rural wildlife users know more about the existing regulations, and to try to foster greater responsibility and awareness (238, 252, 443, 573).