2010 Fauna & Flora International, Oryx, 44(4), 564–572 Wildlife hunting by indigenous tribes: a case study from Arunachal Pradesh, north-east India Ambika Aiyadurai, Navinder J . Singh and E . J . Milner-Gulland
Abstract Hunting is a serious threat to wildlife worldwide. The rainforest-rich Arunachal Pradesh state of India, a biodiversity hotspot, is an area severely affected by indigenous hunting. The state has several indigenous tribes who hunt for food, trade, culture and leisure. Using semi-structured interviews and questionnaires we surveyed 184 individuals in 51 villages across four tribes for information on species hunted and hunting practices. A total of 33 mammalian species are reportedly hunted, of which only 11 were reported by hunters during formal interviews. The other 22 species were observed during casual visits, festivals and informal discussions. Of the species hunted 20 are Endangered, Vulnerable or Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List. Villagers now travel longer distances to hunt than they did a decade ago, suggesting a decline in wildlife populations around villages. The extent of offtake of mammals was related to the altitude of the village and the use of guns. Villagers living at higher altitudes and with guns appeared to hunt more. We also documented the importance of ritualistic hunting by some tribes. Additional research is required to estimate offtake and consumption rates of wild meat. Increasing conservation awareness and communitybased conservation projects may assist in controlling the severity and extent of this hunting problem.
Keywords: Arunachal Pradesh, culture, Himalayas, hunting, indigenous, India, mammals, tribes
Introduction Hunting for, and trade in, animal parts is a major threat to wildlife across the tropics (Bennett et al., 2002; Milner-Gulland et al., 2003). Local communities living in the vicinity of forests depend on native wildlife for food, trade, cultural purposes and income (Robinson & Redford, 1991; Fa et al., 1995). With growing human populations, increased accessibility to remote forests and adoption of modern hunting methods and guns, the problem of hunting has become severe. Inmany places species are being extracted far above sustainable limits (Hill et al., 1997; Hart, 2002) because of market demands for wild meat (Fa et al., 1995; Apaza et al., 2002). In areas where hunting is prevalent, wildlife populations have severely declined in biomass and there have been changes in the relative abundance of age classes (Peres, 2000). Control of this problem requires information on hunting patterns and understanding on the factors that drive local hunting (Bennett et al., 2000).
In Asia information on hunting is limited (Corlett, 2007) and largely restricted to trade (Banks et al., 2006), whereas in Africa and South America there are data on hunting for subsistence by indigenous communities (Robinson & Redford, 1991). Even less is known about indigenous hunting in India, which contains two biodiversity hotspots and has dedicated environmental legislation (Anonymous, 1994). We focus our study on north-east India, a biodiversity hotspot where a strong cultural tradition of hunting exists. Although India has a tradition of wildlife protection (Rangarajan, 2001), indigenous communities in north-east India are culturally more similar to those in South-east Asia than those in peninsular India, and hence hunting practices are commo (Datta, 2007). Hunting is cultural and widespread in the state of Arunachal Pradesh and has led to low wildlife abundance (Datta, 2002; Hilaluddin et al., 2005; Mishra et al., 2006).
To understand better the societal drivers of these hunting practices in Arunachal Pradesh, and the ecological impacts, baseline information on hunting is required. We designed this study to identify the drivers of hunting and generate baseline information on hunting trends in Arunachal Pradesh. We conducted surveys and semi-structured interviews to (1) document general hunting patterns across tribes (frequency of hunting, species hunted, reasons for hunting and not hunting, perceptions of hunting, techniques and taboos related to wildlife hunting), (2) identify the main factors determining hunting, and (3) identify the main predictors of level of offtake.We aimed to obtain a broad understanding of wildlife hunting based on a range of tribal cultural practices, geographical locations and hunting skills.