Use of game fauna by Fulni-ô people in Northeastern Brazil: implications for conservation

The intensive use of animals for the supply of nutritional demands by local and traditional communities worldwide has attracted the attention of several researchers due to their effects on faunal stocks caused by overexploitation [1]. The consumption of game meat is considered the primary reason for game hunting, often occurring in developing countries with great wildlife richness, mainly in the African, Asian, and South American continents [1]. In Brazil, despite its legal restriction, hunting persists in different socio-cultural contexts [2‐4], being allowed in subsistence conditions [5]. However, hunting of wild animals persists to a greater or lesser extent in all Brazilian biomes, being strongly associated with cultural aspects and the nutritional needs of the human groups involved [3].

Concerning indigenous peoples, this relationship becomes even stronger, contributing to the subsistence of these peoples, as well as to the maintenance of their cultural identity [6‐8]. It is secured to them by the Brazilian constitution their rights to maintain their lands, way of life, and traditions [9]. For these peoples, scientific research in the Amazon has pointed out a large number of species with hunting importance that varies with their size, taxonomic group, and utilitarian purposes [2, 4, 10]. However, considering the semi-arid region, there is still little research on the dynamics of wildlife consumption by traditional communities in the Northeast region of Brazil [11, 12].

The hunting of wild animals involves a series of factors that may influence the choice of individual species to the detriment of others [2, 3, 10, 13‐15]. The biological characteristics of species, such as abundance and biomass, for example, may direct the preference for specific prey among the hunters providing a higher post-activity yield [10]. Peres [2] observed that, in several places in the Amazon region, the rural population consumes between 9.6 and 23.5, birds and mammals, representing total estimated biomass of 67.173 to 164.692 tons and a yield of 36.392 to 89.224 tons of wild meat appropriate for consumption. Large animals tend to be more hunted and consequently more impacted than medium and small animals [2, 10]. Likewise, it is justified that taxa such as mammals and birds may be more in demand due to their biomass and abundance, respectively [1, 16].

In addition to the factors cited, climatic seasonality can affect the frequency of visitation to hunting areas [7] and the availability of these resources in the environment. These authors observed that the rainy season is considered the most favorable to hunt, due to the greater availability of food resources for the animals, easy identification of the traces left, and reduced risks of hunters being perceived. Conversely, in environments with strong climatic variations, such as the Caatinga, this activity may be more frequent in periods of seasonal drought, when the use of other resources becomes scarce [17].

Hunting in the Caatinga plays a strong socioeconomic role. Thus, the use of several vertebrate groups is an important source of protein for rural and urban communities [17]. For indigenous people living in these regions, hunting sometimes becomes a more frequent activity in relation to other activities involving animals, such as fishing, due to the drought regime [18]. In these areas, even cattle breeding and pasture areas, as well as plant crops, are strongly affected by droughts, which may make hunting a subsistence alternative [10, 12]. Another factor mentioned in the literature for the selection of game species is the proximity of human settlements to hunting areas. Studies indicate that this variable influences not only the species choices but also the amount of biomass acquired [11, 15]. Santos et al. [19], evaluating the effect of migration and incorporation on the medicine repertoire of the Truká indigenous people in the semi-arid region, that the proximity of other available resources, may favor the incorporation of new useful species into these communities. This distancing from the urban centers is related to a decrease in the availability of domesticated meat and may increase the demand for game meat.

Similarly, the authors argue that the proximity of useful resources decreases the costs of the search and investments of obtaining strategies [20]. However, Peres and Nascimento [10] point out that these meetings in the vicinity of the settlements may favor the capture of small animals that present a higher reproductive rate in relation to large animals. For the Fulni-ô people, seasonality is an important factor that marks most of the activities, which are performed by the opportunities that change between the seasons [21].

Thus, this research focused on the hunting of game meat among the Fulni-ô people living in the semi-arid region, being the first study carried out in an ethnic group strongly influenced by urbanization in the Brazilian Northeast. Thus, our objective was to verify the possible influences of environmental variables and biological characteristics of the species (as perceived by the people) on hunting behavior.

For this, we tested if species that are perceived as more abundant by these hunters are also more hunted. We expect that the amount of annual biomass caught (kg) of species considered more abundant will be significantly higher than that of species considered less abundant. Also, we verify if the proximity to the faunal resource makes it possible to obtain it. Therefore, we tested if the amount of biomass caught in the months of religious ceremony, in which the members of the group move to a settlement near the Ouricuri forest, is significantly higher than in other months. We also tested whether seasonality influences the hunting of game meat in the region, and we expect that the amount of biomass (kg) is significantly higher in the dry season than in the rainy season. Finally, we tested if there is a relation between the preference of game species by the hunters and the hunting of game meat. We expect that the most preferred game meat biomass will be higher than the least preferred ones.

Among the 64 potentially useful animals indicated from the semi-structured interviews (supplementary file 2), 22 species were frequently hunted within the period of the present study. A total of 673 animals were hunted between the years 2015 and 2016 by the Fulni-ô, representing 209,866 (kg) of game meat hunted. Among the animals, 77% were hunted during the day, and birds were the taxonomic group that presented 59% of the game, with the highest rate for Zenaida auriculata (Des Murs., 1847) (26,935 kg). Mammals followed birds with 27%, among which the most hunted was Galea spixii (Wagler, 1831) (19,775 kg). Reptiles came subsequently with 14%, and the species Salvator merianae (Duméril & Bibron, 1839) was the most hunted within this group (79,100 kg) (Table 1).

Although the low number of volunteers monitored hunters in the second stage of hunting monitoring (n = 20), we believe that these data represent the current scenario of hunting among the most active hunters that allowed the collection of such information. The results on the number of animals and taxa hunted diverge from other studies regarding the annual rate of extraction of these resources in places with high faunistic diversity, such as the Amazon region [2, 10, 36], as well as in other tropical regions such as many African countries [37‐40]. These differences in relation to the Amazon, for example, may be directly related to the faunistic composition and its size and the nutritional demands of the region [4, 10]. Even when compared to studies of wild animal consumption in the Caatinga region [5, 41], the number of animals hunted is higher than that reported for the Fulni-ô, which may be indicative of a lower demand for game in relation to other communities in the northeast region [5, 12, 17, 31].

These differences in the hunting of game meat observed for the Funi-ô in relation to other ethnic groups lead us to infer that hunting activity is much more focused on local cultural maintenance than a subsistence strategy. That low wild meat demand may suggest that hunters target their strategies at species whose attributes for choice include cultural aspects, such as the taste of meat or taboos. Campos [18] supports our idea by suggesting that hunting for this group is a food supplement for a few residential units. The author also argues that hunting is practiced for recreational purposes, domestic breeding, and the use of non-edible animals, such as some species of birds. This recent increase in wildlife utilization by the Fulni-ô caused by strong drought regimes, which consequently affects fishing activity in the region, can also be interpreted as a temporal reflection that may or may not change over time, depending on the availability of other natural resources. This characteristic change in the ways of obtaining natural resources was pointed out by Francesconi et al. [42], who argued based on their findings that hunting intensity may reflect a specific context of these communities in space and time or a cultural fusion of subsistence activities. Similarly, McNamana et al. [43] reinforce the idea that preference for game meat may not be fixed, varying according to the circumstances experienced by such hunters.

The cultural attributes, such as beliefs, attitudes, and social norms, are present and were equally important together with economic motivations for the hunting of wild animals in primarily urban areas [14]. Besides that, other factors that may reinforce the low dependency of the Fulni-ô on game meat is the involvement of hunters in other external subsistence activities and the ease of obtaining non-wild animal protein, due to the proximity to the urban centers. Fita et al. [44] point out that the decrease in hunting activity may be a result of the increase of alternative productions of consumption and income generation. This possibility of external alternatives is similarly highlighted in the study by Francesconi et al. [42], mainly among younger hunters who migrate more frequently to urban areas. This migration or the urbanization processes that local/traditional communities are subjected to, despite contributing to the well-being and providing opportunities for education and access to health, is pointed out by the authors as a factor that favors habitat fragmentation in their territories, which diminishes traditional sources of subsistence [45]. The latter author also points out that such urbanization processes can also contribute to the exclusion, invisibility, and violence of these peoples in addition to influencing the detachment from their traditional practices. These factors also imply less involvement of hunters in this activity [46‐48], which leads the indigenous people to develop these practices in their free time. These factors are suggested in the literature as potential modelers of hunting practices due to the lower cost of obtaining the animal protein.

Likewise, most studies report a higher frequency of hunting on mammalian species, followed by birds and reptiles [10, 46], that we did not observe in our findings. The preference for mammals is not only due to their size or availability but also to the taste of the protein in relation to the other taxa [8, 10, 15, 41]. The most common mammal species observed in our research are mainly small animals, such as G. spixii. The high frequency of use of these animals can be considered an adjustment of the hunters to the reduction of the most sought species [20, 46]. Moreover, records in the literature point out that these small animals are less susceptible to hunting because of their high reproduction rate [2] and are commonly abundant in more anthropic areas [20].

On the other hand, it is important to point out that this trend towards G. spixii may also indicate a transfer of possible pressures of use in relation to other taxa of medium and large sizes [17, 41]. This requires the hunter to increase the effort to capture more of these animals to meet their demands. In addition, the defaunation that has been occurring in the semi-arid region may also be a factor for this transfer for the use of other species [17, 41]. This targeting of small species may indeed be a reflection of the decline of preferred species in the vicinity of human settlements, inducing hunters to search for animals other than their primary choices [17, 42].

The high rate of bird reported in our study is supported by other records in the literature that indicate the taxon as one of the most sought after by local communities in the Caatinga [5, 41, 47]. However, the high frequency of avifauna caught among the Fulni-ô should not only be a consequence of their high abundance but also of a greater efficiency in their attainment, since much of the incursions are carried out in groups and by applying a combination of strategies that optimize the success of the activity. This higher occurrence in the capture of birds, especially Z. auriculata, by members of this ethnicity, if interpreted in terms of the benefits generated after capture, reinforces the local importance of the possibility of multiple uses of these animals to the detriment of other less versatile species. This versatility of use may justify the fact that many of these birds are caught for non-food purposes, especially between March and April, the period of highest intensity in the artisanal confection in the Village. These are obtained exclusively for the extraction of their by-products with the purpose of making handcrafted artifacts [21], such as headdresses and arrows. Silva et al. [25], when analyzing the artisanal production of the Fulni-ô natives, also identified several artifacts that are made aiming at the external market demand, which are more related to the white man’s perception of indigenous peoples. However, the need of the market and the contact with other ethnic groups can cause the indigenous people to adjust their strategies of sale. Regarding the reptiles hunted in the studied region, the high rate of capture of S. merianae among the others reported may be mainly related to the return relative to biomass. In addition, like the birds, it may be related to the better use of its byproducts for local medicine, for example. This trend has been recorded in other researches that show that this lizard species is one of the most consumed in several regions of Latin America, and its lard is often used in the treatment of inflammation [49‐52].

Regarding seasonality, the migratory event related to the ritual of Ouricuri (September to December), which increases the contact of Fulni-ô members with natural resources, did not show a significant variation in the composition of the fauna hunted in the region. This contradicts our expectations and other studies that observed that the proximity of foraging areas is an important factor for the increase in the use of natural resources [5, 53]. This intensification of faunal use was verified by Van Vliet and Nasi [53] in Northeast of Gabon, Africa, where they observed a temporal and spatial variation in the period of drought in the region during the same period of the local religious ceremony. Conversely, the ceremony of the Fulni-ô occurs, as already mentioned, in a longer period of drought, which is a certain way that limits the encounter with animals of other taxa and favors the encounter of species of birds, mainly migratory ones like Z. auriculata. This species was pointed out by Mendonça et al. [5] as one of the most hunted, which justifies the abovementioned species targeting due to their high abundance during periods of scarcity from other hunting sources. However, we cannot disregard the limitation on access to information during the reclusion period for the performance of the Ouricuri religious ceremony, in which this access is allowed only to members of the ethnic group. During this period, information about hunted animals was collected only by hunters who assisted us in the research.

Another relevant issue among the Fulni-ô is that most species were hunted during the daytime. This may also be a reflection of the very legality of the hunting activity for indigenous groups. Therefore, since hunting is an integral part of these cultural reaffirmation actions, it is expected that it will be performed more frequently in shifts that pose fewer risks to hunters. This safety of daytime hunting in relation to nocturnal hunting, due to better visibility of the foraging area and the greater presence of fauna preferred by the natives, may be a determining factor in the hunting practices in the Village. Night hunting is reported in the literature as a more costly practice, with less prey availability [53], which requires different strategies that are usually applied in combination and facilitate visibility reducing risks [15].

Our results support previous studies carried out in the Caatinga region in which was observed a higher avifauna catch rate, although the low rate of vertebrate hunting observed here can be interpreted as a strong contrast between the demand of game meat from other communities and Fulni-ô ethnicity. Likewise, the variables abundance, biomass, and the proximity of the resource did not present strong influences in relation to the species hunted in the region. This allows us to infer that the use of game meat in the Village has a strong cultural aspect of maintenance and reaffirmation of the indigenous identity and not only of subsistence. This confrontation of the Fulni-ô cultural practice also can be a response to the strong influence of urbanization and the external income opportunities that allow the use of non-traditional faunal resources in the markets near the Village. This lower dependence of the resource as subsistence can be reinforced by the directing of the hunt to the species pointed out as the ones that are preferred by the hunters. Thus, the data presented here help to understand the dynamics of how this cultural practice occurs in the face of environmental processes such as scarcity of resources, urbanization, and aspects that are inherent to hunters, such as preferences and strategies adopted to guarantee a satisfactory return of the hunting practice.

On the other hand, it is also important to note that the cultural resistance of the Fulni-ô members is also supported by the preservation of their native language, their religious ceremony, and their different relationships with natural resources. Thus, ethnicity presents important contexts to be investigated by future research in relation to possible cultural adjustments due to socioenvironmental factors. Therefore, we emphasize the importance of integrating not only environmental or biological variables of the target species, but also cultural and social aspects about the hunting practices of traditional communities. Such understanding is also fundamental concerning to the food security of these peoples, especially in the current global scenario in which we live in a pandemic caused by the COVID-19 virus, whose origin and spread may have been influenced by the cultural habit of consuming wild species. From the perspective of conservation, the information presented here helps to evaluate the natural stocks of the local fauna, emphasizing the importance of integrating these communities into the management processes through strategies that stimulate such involvement, and supports the knowledge of the practice to be transmitted to the following generations.