Impact of COVID-19 on the temporal dynamics of the bushmeat trade in Côte d’Ivoire, West Africa

<h2>Abstract</h2> The bushmeat trade in West Africa is a major societal issue with contrasting implications on biodiversity, health, and economy. We assessed trade dynamics in Côte d'Ivoire as a response to governmental measures against the COVID-19 pandemic. Changepoint analysis over a 60-week period showed that the COVID-19 lockdown established in March 2020 quickly drove all bushmeat sites to a null number of vendors. However, growth curve analysis revealed significant recovery trend differences during the period of governmental measures, with the largest bushmeat market of Abidjan only showing signs of resumption after the sanitary measures were totally lifted. COVID-19 had a mid-to-long-term impact on bushmeat trade dynamics, as 11 months after the end of governmental measures a first survey showed that three of the bushmeat sites exhibited lower numbers of vendors (c. 56–91 %) than before the pandemic. A second survey conducted 22–24 months later showed a drastic decline in the number of vendors in two bushmeat sites, one of them as a consequence of professional reorientations. Forecasting model predictions through Random Forest algorithms were not optimal for sites that had high heterogeneity in recovery, notably for Toumodi restaurants that resumed trading earlier than the bushmeat markets. Our study showed that governmental measures against the COVID-19 pandemic can have a lasting impact on the bushmeat trade dynamics, which remains difficult to predict because of its inherently complex determinism. We conclude that neglecting the socio-geographical specificities of bushmeat sites may lead to erroneous prediction and management of trade dynamics under conservation- or sanitary-oriented mitigation policies.