A growing appetite for “bushmeat” in Nigeria is seeing hundreds of thousands of animals – many of them endangered – slaughtered to feed the demand for “exotic” meat.

Primates, bushbuck, turtles and critically endangered pangolins are just some of the species strung up at markets, often alive, and then brutally killed when they are purchased for the pot.

Credit: GWCI

Can you imagine “browsing” a selection of live, anguished animals, stolen from the wild, ripped from their families and familiar surroundings, and restrained in filthy, chaotic, disease-ridden markets? We cannot fathom it either – but you will be relieved to know WE ARE HELPING SAVE these tortured animals. Read on…

Bushmeat – the meat of Africa’s wild animals used for human consumption.

Credit: GWCI

Butchered for their meat and body parts or sold to be PETS, the desperate wild animals of Nigeria need your help now.

We are working with a brave partner on the ground who ventures into these places of horror, often with police reinforcement, to confiscate terrified, injured animals.

Greenfingers Wildlife Conservation Initiative (GWCI) in Lekki, Nigeria, makes regular visits to illegal bushmeat markets and rescues wild animals in the nick of time before they are killed and sold for their meat and body parts. Tragically, it is often too late for some – usually adult animals – but GWCI is usually able to confiscate orphaned infants from blood-thirsty meat sellers.

Credit: GWCI

Stitch – a small, helpless potto – was saved after being so badly beaten by meat sellers in Nigeria that he can NEVER live a normal life.

Recently, our partner received an alert that a potto – a small, slow-moving creature similar to a lemur – was in serious trouble at a bushmeat market. When they arrived, they discovered the animal bleeding profusely from the head and barely able to move: he had been axed so severely with a hatchet that he was almost dead.

The intention had been to kill him for food.

Credit: GWCI

Pottos are gentle, solitary ‘tree-hugging teddy bears’. When threatened, they will freeze in place for hours, and this, combined with their slow-moving nature, makes them an easy target for humans.

Later named Stitch, the animal was evacuated and given emergency care. Miraculously, he survived, but even after months of rehabilitation, it is clear he will never be able to return to the wild due to the severity of his injuries.

Stitch is just one example of the countless terrified, traumatized, wounded animals our partner saves from brutal meat markets. The craving for bushmeat among Nigerians severely threatens helpless animals against humans, and their trade is rapidly depleting their numbers.

Credit: GWCI

Critically endangered animals like pangolins and red-bellied monkeys and endangered animals like lions, chimpanzees, elephants, gorillas, vultures, and manatees are all helpless targets of poachers.

They stand NO chance without our help right now.

Around 10 to 15 animals are rescued by our partner every month. Many – like pangolins and bushbuck – are ripped away from their mothers by poachers at just a few days old.

Tragically, most will NEVER be reunited with their mothers, who are usually beaten, stabbed and butchered to death and sold for their meat (to be eaten) and body parts (used in fake “medicines” on the Asian and African markets), or sold to be pets.

Credit: GWCI

Poached animals are stuffed into dirty sacks, then poked, prodded, beaten and tortured, and kept in appalling and traumatizing conditions.

We simply CANNOT stand by and do nothing!

Today, we need your help to save as many of these animals as possible. Most require months of specialized care and rehabilitation before being released back into safe, protected wild areas. Those who cannot be released, like Stitch, remain in our partners’ care for the rest of their lives.

Right now, we urgently need funds for milk formula, veterinary care for orphaned animals and urgent animal rescue missions.

Credit: GWCI

If we can raise $11,000 (around £8,662), we can support 30 rescued animals for three months and also help fund critical rescue missions.

Please, will you help provide critical care to wild animals who desperately need our support right now? They could really use your help, and your donation right now will change their lives – and their fates.