Giant rodents a Lenten dish
www.sun-sentinel.com By Owain Johnson Special Correspondent Posted March 18 2003
Caracas · Weighing in at about 100 pounds, the capybara is the world's largest rodent. It lives in and near rivers and lakes and is most commonly found in Venezuela's tropical wetlands. This time of year, it also tends to be found on dinner plates.
A quirk of history means that a giant rodent is to Lent in Venezuela what the turkey is to Thanksgiving in the United States, even though scientists worry that the animal's prominent role in Lenten dinners is threatening the long-term future of the species.
About 400 years ago, Spanish missionaries discovered that some indigenous communities in Venezuela, Colombia and Brazil relied for much of their protein on the meat of the capybara, an animal that no European had seen before.
The missionaries reported back to Rome that they had encountered an animal that was hairy and scaly and spent more of its time in the water than on land. They asked whether their new converts could continue to eat capybara at Lent, a time when Catholics traditionally avoid meat.
With no clear idea of what the capybara was or looked like and concerned a ban would lead to indigenous communities starving during Lent, the Vatican immediately ruled that the semi-aquatic mammal was in fact a fish.
The tradition continues to this day, and eating capybara remains part of the Lenten tradition for many families, despite the fact that the giant rodent tastes like a cross between fish and lamb.
Last year, a pound of capybara meat rose to $1.09 in the weeks running up to Easter, a considerable sum in a country where the minimum monthly wage at the time was $131 and has since fallen by more than a third.
Capybaras were once so common in areas known as the llanos, or plains, that some ranches were home to tens of thousands of the animals. Packs of the rodents crossing roads were a familiar sight.
Their numbers have fallen in recent years, though, and Edgar Useche, who advises the National Assembly on environmental issues, said the species is in sharp decline.
"Twenty years ago, you'd always see capybaras when you were driving around the llanos, but now, in some of the same areas, the people don't even know what a capybara is," Useche said.
Accurate figures for the numbers of capybaras killed in the run-up to Easter are hard to find because the majority of animals are killed by hunters without a official licenses, but the accepted figure is a minimum of 20,000 animals per year.
Useche argues that this annual cull is fatally weakening a species already suffering the consequences of increased human activity. In an area where most of the population lives in poverty, capybaras are a prime target by hunters who seek them out for their meat, their skins and their oil. Many cattle farmers shoot capybaras because the voracious rodents compete with their livestock for feed.
The science federation Fudeci is hoping to reduce pressure on the capybara by encouraging commercial farming of the species. Fudeci's director general, Ramiro Royero, has found companies interested in marketing farmed capybara meat.
Royero thinks that with proper marketing, Venezuelans could be persuaded to eat commercially produced capybara year-round. He notes that the distinctively flavored meat is high in protein, low in cholesterol and could sell for a fraction of the price of pork or beef.
Fudeci thinks that the sustainable production of capybara on ranch-style farms could provide a lifeline for the species in the wild. Commercial production would undercut demand for wild capybaras hunted illegally, as well as provide jobs and reliable income for impoverished rural areas.
"We have to learn to manage our biological diversity properly," Royero said. "The key is to add value to our natural resources and replenish them rather than wasting them."