ProFauna Invites The Public Not to Consume Wildlife Meat

During the campaign by a well-known shopping center in Malang - East Java on 8 August 2012, ProFauna Indonesia's activists invited the public not to consume wildlife meat because the consumption would lead to wildlife extinction in the wild. The campaign was delivered through a unique campaign where some activists sat behind a table with primate-head-like stuffed dolls lying on. Either ProFauna activists and the stuffed heads were smeared with fake blood. This was to symbolize the cruelty behind the trade of wildlife meat.

According to ProFauna Indonesia's surveys into the meat trade in some regions like Denpasar, Surabaya, Malang, Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Palembang, and Medan; it shows that the trade remains high to supply some restaurants there. The dishes came from the meat of the long-tailed macaque, pangolin, sea turtle, langur, snake, monitor lizard, and porcupine. The records enlist 50 restaurants.

The trade of wildlife meat in the restaurants have become a conservation problem because the wildlife had been poached from the wild. If wildlife poaching go unpunished, local extinction will happen very soon. Not to mention that the population of most species in the wild has not been appropriately updated/recorded. Meanwhile, consuming wildlife meat is unethical because the wildlife are poached and slaughtered in such inhumane ways.

Radius Nursidi, ProFauna Indonesia's Campaigns Officer, stated, "In the Holy Month of Ramadhan, ProFauna invites the public to eat healthy and halal (permissible by Islam Religion) food because most of the wildlife meat is categorized as haram (forbidden by Islam Religion)". Nursidi added, "There are thousands of delicious food choices in Indonesia and they could be easily found without sacrificing the wildlife which have been threatened by extinction. The public must wisely choose the food not containing wildlife parts".