The Hunting of White-Tailed rat by Minahasa Tribe, North Sulawesi, Indonesia

Abstract

The tradition of eating and trading wild animals (bushmeat) is said to have existed for thousands of years ago and has remained to this day. Forest rats are one of the wild animals which in recent times have been hunted and used meat for consumption. The phenomenon of scarcity and decline in the population of forest rats in their habitat in the forest area of North Sulawesi is thought to have begun. The objective of this study was to investigate the hunting activities of white-Tailed rat by the Minahasa tribe, North Sulawesi from September to October 2018. The method used snowball sampling for selecting rat hunters as respondents. A total of 60 hunters were interviewed in two villages. Data were obtained using structured questionnaires surveys. The result shows that local people generally do hunting for hobby (55%). They are generally farmers, with low levels of education and income. They primarily use guns (4 8.33%) for catching rats, while the other use dog (23.33%), trap (8.33%) and all three (20%). Hunting time of white-Tailed rat done during day and night. There are other types of wild animals that are hunted such as bat, bird, wild pig, snake, and squirrel.