Game harvest in the most populated Amazonian sustainable-use protected area: insights from 5-years of community-based monitoring

Abstract

Abstract Although wildlife has long been crucial for food provision and traditions, wildlife overexploitation can pervasively affect populations. Thus, game harvest monitoring initiatives became a key tool to evaluate hunting sustainability across tropical forests. We used a 5-year community-based monitoring database from the Tapajós-Arapiuns Extractive Reserve in the Brazilian Amazon, to examine hunting profile across different villages and assess the influence of anthropogenic stressors and monitored years on community composition (relative frequency and biomass) and hunting productivity using CPUE (catch per unit of effort). We further assessed trends in CPUE of all game species and the six most hunted species along the time series. A total of 5,760 hunting events by 391 families from 13 villages resulted in 6,436 animals from 24 taxa, yielding a harvest of 65,488 kg. Medium to large-sized mammals were the main targets of hunters, but villages exhibited different hunting profiles. Anthropogenic variables did not affect community composition and CPUE, and CPUE remained stable through time. Our findings suggest that hunting is likely sustainable for most species, with the exception of those large and threatened species like Tapirus terrestris and Tayassu pecari. We finally encourage that other Amazonian sustainable-use reserves monitor subsistence hunting through our hunting protocol.