Title
Chapter Title: Importance of primates to Tacana indigenous subsistence hunting in the Bolivian Amazon
Book Title: Neotropical ethnoprimatology
Author(s)
Townsend, Wendy R.;Wallace, Robert B.;Lara-Delgado, Kantuta;Miranda-Chumacero, Guido
Published
2020
Abstract
The Tacana Amerindian subsistence includes fish, wildlife, and other renewable natural resources harvested from their territory in the Andean foothills and Amazonian floodplain of northern Bolivia. Subsistence hunting registered by 117 participants of 5 Tacana villages for 7 years and 4 months (2001–2008) is analyzed in this chapter and summed a total of 16,979 individual animals and 152,689 kg of biomass harvested. Primates represented 13% of the biomass total, with 4693 individual primates harvested in this period. Primates, especially Ateles chamek, are culturally important as reciprocity and honor gifts which hunters save for important people. This may be because their meat is considered the tastiest and most tender of wild meats. The age-sex structure of the Tacana primate harvest was dominated by adult males, except for Ateles chamek where adult females dominated. The average distance to Ateles harvest locations was greater than for other primate and wildlife species, suggesting selective hunting, although less than 20% of hunting trips brought in more than one individual primate. The fact that hunters forego smaller prey that may be harvested closer to the community, in order to hunt Ateles further away, is an indication of their importance to the culture, an importance that is protected by the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention ILO 169 international agreement. The information presented feeds the internal dialog of the Tacana people led by their organization CIPTA, including strategic plans that include wildlife management in the territory. The analysis presented here represents a baseline to inform decision-making processes and develop rules and other mechanisms to ensure the continued existence of primates in the Tacana culture and forests.
Keywords
subsistence hunting;bolivian amazon;indigenous livelihoods;ethnoprimatology;wildlife management

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PUB26233