BIODIVERSITAS ISSN: 1412-033X Volume 23, Number 5, May 2022 E-ISSN: 2085-4722 Pages: 2411-2416 DOI: 10.13057/biodiv/d230519 Hunting of wild animals by Saubeba Community in Manokwari, West Papua, Indonesia SAREMAY SAWAKI 1,♥ , DENISA TARAN 2, , FRANSISKUS TARAN 2 , ROBI BOMOI 2 , MARSIA RUMATERAY 2 1 Department of Community and Village Development of West Papua Province. Jl. Jend.Purn. Abraham O. Atururi, Kompleks Perkantoran Arfai, Manokwari 98312, West Papua, Indonesia. Tel./fax.: +62-986-211719,  email: saremaysawaki@gmail.com 2 Department of Forestry, Faculty of Forestry, Universitas Papua. Jl. Gunung Salju Amban, Manokwari 98312, West Papua, Indonesia.  email: denisataran14@gmail.com Manuscript received: 2 February 2022. Revision accepted: 21 April 2022. Abstract. Sawaki S, Taran D, Taran F, Bomoi R, Rumateray M. 2022. Hunting of wild animals by Saubeba Community in Manokwari, West Papua, Indonesia. Biodiversitas 23: 2411-2416. Hunting is a way to harvest wild animals from nature and it is still a common practice by local communities in Papua, Indonesia. This study aims to investigate traditional ecological knowledge of hunting wild animals by Saubeba community in Manokwari, West Papua, Indonesia. The data was collected through open interviews to 32 respondents determined using the snowball sampling technique. The result showed that hunting is performed in a group of 4-8 members when the dark moon happens. A group of hunters consists of adult men and teenage boys aged above 15 years old. They hunt 3-4 times per month with a duration of 2-3 days in the forest. Modern hunting is carried out using weapons, while traditional hunting is performed with the help of dogs, used arrows, spears and snares. Women are not allowed to hunt and they are prohibited to touch all hunting equipment and the catches. Among the wild animals hunted, nine out of sixteen species are categorized as protected animals and some of them have high conservation concerns in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List and Convention on International Trades on Endangered Species (CITES) list. No conservation efforts are planned and applied by the hunters and the community. However, there is a shift in the diet, in which eleven respondents stop hunting and start to raise livestock for consumption purposes. This suggests that assistance in livestock rearing programs by government is required to reduce the hunting pressure on the remaining wild animals. Keywords: Ethnozoology, local wisdom, vogelkop, wild meat INTRODUCTION Biodiversity richness of Papua New Guinea is the second-largest in the world. It has enormous biodiversity with a high level of endemicity. This place has the richest vascular plant species in the world, standing at 13,634 species (Camara-Leret et al. 2020). In terms of animal biodiversity, this island consists of 475 species of mammals, 562 species of Reptiles and Amphibians, 1130 species of birds, 5850 species of fish, and thousands of invertebrate species (Kartikasari et al. 2012). Papua, which refers to the west side of the island, has 50% of the total biological richness in Indonesia, a country recognized as one of the "mega biodiversity counties" (Marshall and Beehler 2011). These natural resources have been used by the community to meet the needs of daily life for generations. The regulation in using wild animals is formulated in the law of the Republic of Indonesia. The law of the Republic of Indonesia Number 41, 2014 states that wild animals are all animals that live on land, water and air that still have wild characteristics, both those that live freely in nature and those that are kept by humans. Furthermore, the Regulation of the Republic of Indonesia Number 13 in 1994 states that hunting is everything related to hunt while the hunt is catching and/or killing hunted animals, including taking or moving eggs and/or nests of hunted animals. Hunted animals are certain species of wild animals that are set to be hunted, generally, animals that are not protected by law. In meeting the family's protein needs, Papuan communities still consume bush meat (Pattiselanno et al. 2019). Hunting has been carried out mainly by people who live around the forest and coastal areas and it has become a hereditary activity. In this modern era, there are still many tribes in Papua whose lives still depend on hunting because they are facing various difficulties to access farmed meat. However, hunting is not easy work. People who do hunting must know effective and efficient hunting strategies to obtain wild animals so that the catches are sufficient to meet household needs. Hunters must have adequate knowledge of the biology and ecology of wild animals (Alves et al. 2009). Hunting strategies can be varied between tribes and communities. It has been developed over a long period of time and adapted to the changes in the wild animal populations and environmental conditions (Ross et al. 1978). Research conducted by Fatem et al. (2014) discovered that there are 11 species of wild animals that are hunted and used as a source of protein, trading, medication and jewelry in three villages in North Manokwari Sub-district, namely Pami, Nuni and Inoduas. This study showed that hunting and utilization of wild animals in this area is still actively carried out. However, there is no explanation