Congo Miners Poach At-Risk Animals Because They Have Nothing Else to Eat
A new study finds that small-scale mineral mining in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is a critical factor in illegal poaching of great apes and other wildlife. It’s happening for the saddest, most basic of reasons, too: Those miners are hungry. In fact, the miners have no other source of meat/protein. Sure, they’d eat beef, chicken or fish, but their circumstances prevent them from obtaining it. Needing a source of meat, they instead hunt and kill the animals they can find. They’re eating bushmeat from gorillas, chimpanzees, elephants and other animals. The study by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) surveyed small-scale miners over the course of three months. An artisanal or small-scale miner is essentially a subsistence miner. These men, women, and even children are not mining company employees. Rather, they work independently at mines, digging or panning for minerals with little to no equipment. They are among the 13 to 25 million people worldwide wh...