Oskar Biteye, giovane pigmeo del Congo

(AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

In this March 19, 2010 photo, Oskar Biteye, grandson of family chief Zaire and the group’s youngest hunter, returns from the hunt with his day’s catch, a forest antelope, in the Okapi Wildlife Reserve outside the town of Epulu, Congo. The pygmies traditional practice of hunting bushmeat has devolved into an all-out commercial endeavor, staged not for subsistence, but to feed growing regional markets. The result: the forests, those that remain, are growing emptier by the day.