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I’ll never forget the first time I saw a capybara. I was strolling though the zoo with my daughter when we came to an enclosure. I didn’t see any animals right away, so I looked at the photo card posted on their environment. “It looks like they are some kind of little guinea pigs from South America,” I told my daughter, peering at the cute photo. “Look,” she said, as one of the four-foot-long, 100-pound creatures came gamboling into view. “Holy crap,” I said to myself. “That’s one huge guinea pig.” And from that moment on, I was smitten. I loved eveything about them: their surprising size, their ugly/cuteness, their status as the world’s largest rodent. The capybara became, at that moment, my spirit animal.
So imagine my dismay to find out that people love the flavor of my spirit animal. The New York Times says “In Venzuela, Rodents Can Be a Delicacy.”
On his television show, ‘Hello, President,’ [Venezuelan president Hugo] Chávez has promoted capybara empanadas washed down with papaya juice.
Yes, despite boasting a flavor profile that is somewhere on the continuum between sardines and salt pork, around spingtime the capybara is widely sought after to grace the Lenten table (it’s closer to fish than meat, proponents say).
And by sought after, I mean hunted. And hunted kind of viciously at that, often clubbed to death. Some people are working to reduce the cruelty in the killing of capybaras:
‘We’re not asking for the capybaras to be put to death while listening to Vivaldi, but something could be done to make the practice less brutal,’ said Víctor Moreno, the head chef at the Center for Gastronomic Studies, a Caracas cooking school. ‘Capybara is an exquisite meat that deserves prominent stature in our culinary tradition.’
I’m all for the enjoyment of deliciousness. But overhunting is causing a serious reduction in the number of capybaras. Maybe some recognition of their cuteness could save them from endangerment?
From a relatively current United Nations Foresty department report:
"Both professional capybara hide hunters "carpincheros" and subsistence hunters, who frequently hunt along the forest rivers, may use dogs to drive capybara to shore or into the water where they can be shot or harpooned. Capybara are also hunted at night with lanterns on rivers from canoes or they may be caught in pitfalls dug...+READ
From a relatively current United Nations Foresty department report:
"Both professional capybara hide hunters "carpincheros" and subsistence hunters, who frequently hunt along the forest rivers, may use dogs to drive capybara to shore or into the water where they can be shot or harpooned. Capybara are also hunted at night with lanterns on rivers from canoes or they may be caught in pitfalls dug along their characteristic pathways. Often, capybara killed on the shore fall into the water, but they float to the surface after 20 minutes or so because of the fermentation gases produced in the digestive tract.
Capybara are hunted commercially in the llanos of Colombia and Venezuela during the dry season (January to March) on the open savannah, where they can be located, rounded up and driven by mounted hunters to a pre-arranged spot where helpers then surround the herd and slaughter the adults with clubs. In some spots they may slaughter as many as 200 animals a day. The animals are either gutted in the field or transported to a camp or slaughterhouse."
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My guess at the reason for some clubbing rather than shooting is the use of the hides for carpincho leather" which has gained popularity in some circles.-COLLAPSE
Capybaras are cute and lambs are cute. And they're both delicious. I ate capybara many times in Venezuela and Colombia when I lived there between the 1950s and the 1970s. I also ate danta (tapir), guinea pig, piranha and other critters you've probably never heard of. If chiguire (the Venezuelan name for capybara) were found naturally in the US, you would probably not be recoiling, fretting and...+READ
Capybaras are cute and lambs are cute. And they're both delicious. I ate capybara many times in Venezuela and Colombia when I lived there between the 1950s and the 1970s. I also ate danta (tapir), guinea pig, piranha and other critters you've probably never heard of. If chiguire (the Venezuelan name for capybara) were found naturally in the US, you would probably not be recoiling, fretting and hand-wringing over the matter. You would treat them like lambs. Cute but eminently edible.
I am not certain what authoritiies you quote regarding the flavor of capybara. When fresh, the meat tastes like...chicken. Well, more like delicate pork due to the fact that, like most rodents, it is largely herbivorous. The first Spanish explorers in the region found that the Indians would make a dried jerky that looked like salt cod. This is why the Catholic church allowed a special dispensation for dried capybara to be eaten during Lent. I have eaten dried capybara (which must be rehydrated to be edible) and it reminds me of something deliciously unprintable, but certainly not sardines or salt pork.
Finally, I never saw a capybara hunted with clubs. I don't discount your story but it seems such a hard way to hunt them. You see, they are not baby seals, helplessly ready to be de-brained. They are fast and agile. The best way to hunt them is with a rifle. Since they are in the river 99 percent of the time, there is no easy way to approach them in order to club them. They can remain underwater for what seems like hours, so if you approach them on foot or canoe, they sink and pop up 200 yards away minutes later. Even the Indians knew better than trying to club them. So if that's what's happening in Venezuela, it's a sad commentary on the current situation there.-COLLAPSE
When I lived in Brazil, I went on a trip to the Pantanal region, and the organizers divided our groups into sub-groups, each given the name of an animal indigenous to the region. I was on Team Capybara, and I've felt a certain connection with them ever since. I'm kind of sad that people eat them. On the other hand, it's nice that they're apparently delicious. I'd expect nothing less!