The toils and spoils of Congo’s crocodile-killers

parents are disappointed. Their son took a boat from their riverside village to the city of Mbandaka, in the heart of the Congo Basin rainforest, where he enrolled in a teacher-training college. They wanted him to become a crocodile hunter, like his father and most of his ancestors. “There is a lot of pressure,” says Mr Nyalowala. Hunting for bush meat is popular—and may pay better than teaching.

However, it harms wildlife in the rainforest, which spans six countries and is second in size only to the Amazon. Around 6m tonnes of bush meat are thought to come out of the Congo Basin each year. The number of animals killed for the pot has been increasing, according to a study from 2016 led by Goethe University Frankfurt. More hunters are selling their prey in markets, instead of eating it themselves.

Over-hunting has made life more dangerous for crocodile hunters. The number of dwarf crocodiles, once common in the Congo river, is dwindling. So hunters have to chase the ferocious Nile crocodile instead. There are plenty of those. Their scaly bodies stretch to six metres and they often kill humans. Stalkers in canoes go after them at night, shining a torch while stirring the water. “The crocodile does not like that,” says Mr Nyalowala. “He begins to writhe and then comes to attack.

A live crocodile fetches more than a dead one in the markets in Mbandaka, so hunters bind their jaws and transport them some 200km downstream in their canoes. They sell for around $150 each. A teacher at a state school, by comparison, earns around $170 a month, though many did not get paid at all last year. No wonder Mr Nyalowala’s parents wanted him to follow in his father’s footsteps.

This article appeared in the Middle East and Africa section of the print edition under the headline "A crocodile-hunter’s tears"

How convenient that 3 Chinese corporations owe 17% of The Economist stock and that they forgot to mention that the 3,000 Chinese businessmen in the Congo Send 95% of their Alligator skins back to China to produce handbags and Wallets

alllibertynews

Considering that COVID-19 is besieging the globe, perhaps nations need to consider a treaty mandating global education about health, sanitation, and infectious disease risks associated with wild meat markets.

没有买卖，就没有伤害。

😡😤

Yikes

Africans looking to let loose the next virus after this one? Learn agrarian practices after 5000 years already. Stop killing chimps and alligators for food good god

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