Scientists at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) told a British conference that better management of the trade is needed to eliminate the threat to great apes without further harming poor rural communities.

"The bushmeat trade can be very emotive and some of the pictures that come out of the bushmeat markets can be quite horrifying to western eyes but the important thing to remember is that people who are hunting and eating bushmeat generally do not have any other options," said Dr Guy Cowlishaw of the ZSL.

"Part of what we are doing is trying to create more options for those people," he added.

Scientists from the ZSL, who studied the impact of the bushmeat trade in a village in the Democratic Republic of Congo, are developing models to improve its management to reduce the threat to endangered species without harming local communities, some of which depend on the meat for as much as a quarter of their income.

Cowlishaw said key components of the model would be to help make trade sustainable by encouraging the hunting of smaller, plentiful species such as rodents, cane rats and antelopes which have higher reproductive rates and to help countries enforce laws to control the trade.

"Certainly for us one of the concerns we are dealing with is how to support those countries to implement those laws and to find ways to manage the trade which doesn't require a heavy degree of implementation," Cowlishaw said

"The next stage now is to...try it in the field."