Cameroon’s vast and species-rich rainforests are of great importance for global biodiversity and the climate. They are also an important source of food and income for local people. A new study on hunting patterns in the jungles of West Africa includes research gathered by a University of Tennessee professor.  Thomas Imo/German Federal Government

Adam Willcox subsisted on bush meat during African hunting study

Katie Donaldson is a communications specialist for the University of Tennessee School of Natural Resources.

KNOXVILLE — Data collected by a University of Tennessee research associate nearly 30 years ago is part of an extensive study that focuses on hunting patterns in African tropical forests.

Adam Willcox, a research associate professor in the UT Institute of Agriculture School of Natural Resources, co-authored the article, which was published recently in Nature Sustainability. “Regional patterns of wild animal hunting in African tropical forests” was also written by Daniel J. Ingram, research fellow at the University of Kent, and several other researchers. The data show how hunting management is needed to sustain wild animal populations in West and Central Africa.

The article uses data collected from 1991 to 2022 in 83 different studies to create a regional analysis of hunting patterns. Willcox contributed to the publication using research and data he gathered from 1996 to 2001 while promoting agroforestry in the U.S. Peace Corps in Cameroon. “I was in a lowland tropical forest. We did not have domestic alternatives for protein. We had to eat wild animals,” Willcox said. “My research followed 100 hunters around a wildlife sanctuary in Cameroon and their harvests.”