Weathering hard times with bushmeat: rural household coping under rainfall shocks

While bushmeat can be a crucial protein source for food insecure households, its consumption and trade raise significant concerns for both human health and wildlife conservation. Here we investigate how rainfall shocks influence rural households’ income from and reliance on bushmeat hunting. Drawing on data from nearly 8,000 rural households across 24 low- and middle-income countries, matched to gridded rainfall records and detailed agricultural season calendars, our study distinguishes between the effects of shocks depending on their type, intensity and timing of occurrence within the agricultural cycle. We mitigate endogeneity concerns faced in prior studies relying on self-reported shocks and cross-sectional data, by constructing a quarterly household panel survey integrated with objective, high-resolution data on climatic moisture stress. We find that dry conditions increase both bushmeat income and its share in total household income, particularly during critical agricultural periods. Conversely, wet conditions have the opposite effect, often decreasing hunting due to improved agricultural yields. However, these effects vary depending on the intensity of wet conditions. Additionally, we find heterogeneity in responses across socio-economic strata, as wealthier households tend to have higher bushmeat income during dry periods, likely due to better access to resources. The study increases our understanding of when and by whom climate stressors induce greater wildlife offtake, providing important insight for targeted development and conservation policy.