Evaluation of tenrec population viability and potential sustainable management under hunting pressure in northeastern Madagascar

Across the Global South, wildlife is an important source of nutrition and income, particularly for rural communities. While wildlife consumption provides a valuable source of nutrition, high levels of hunting can endanger wildlife species. In the Makira region of north-eastern Madagascar, human health is threatened by food insecurity and malnutrition, and spiny tenrecs are a crucial source of subsistence bushmeat with 91% of households consuming tenrecs at least once per year. Moreover, Makira’s human populations are increasing, resulting in forest decline and degradation. In order to inform conservation and public health efforts, we investigated the influence of hunting, habitat loss and forest degradation on spiny tenrec population dynamics in the Makira region. We collected data on tenrec population densities as well as hunting and consumption by humans in 51 communities. We used these data to conduct a population viability analysis for the two most commonly hunted spiny tenrecs (Tenrec ecaudatus and Setifer setosus). We found that current harvest rates for these species are generally sustainable in the Makira region, largely due to tenrecs’ extraordinary fecundity. However, even assuming no change in current hunting rates, tenrec populations could become threatened if fecundity were to decline or background mortality to increase, both possible scenarios under future trajectories of habitat loss and degradation. We find that any future increase in hunting-induced mortality rates for tenrecs are similarly unsustainable – and likely to occur as human populations expand and hunting areas decline. We conclude that there is a vanishing window of opportunity to sustainably manage tenrec hunting in northeastern Madagascar in order to avoid negative conservation and human health outcomes.