The antelope looked exactly like a cartoon deer. It had rust-coloured fur, white spots on its hindquarters and an oddly regal bearing. Its throat had been slit, and it had just been dumped, rather unceremoniously, on the hard-packed black earth of the burning area at Atwemonom, the open-air abattoir at the centre of Ghana’s commercial bushmeat trade.

The antelope – a female bushbuck – arrived at dawn in a white plastic sack out of a rickety van. It was delivered along with 15 grasscutters (greater cane rats, which look like large guinea pigs and are about a foot long), eight giant rats and two hares. The market woman supervising the delivery had the butchers count everything twice.