Why is the phrase “bushmeat” used, instead of game? A translation of the common African terms?
My father grew up putting bushmeat on the table for his family, deer, rabbit, squirrel.
Maybe bushmeat means animals you really shouldn’t hunt because they’re too likely to cause disease, like primates or bats. Of course, our game might have tularemia, or chronic wasting disease - squirrel brains, anyone?
Bushmeat implies unconventional and perhaps questionable sources of meat. Eating primates is just a bad idea. Bats, too. Maybe some don’t have a choice. But, there are other game species that are not so unconventional and questionable, so a distinction between the two arose.
Didn’t some small breakout of Jacob Kreutzfeld -basically mad cow disease- come from people eating squirrels in KY or something?
Not that I never had one, but that’s the way I remember it...