ABSTRACT. – The use of bushmeat in West Africa is widespread, and the number of people using wildlife as meat and as medicine in this region is very high. Sometimes, one species is used as ‘medicine’ by a population and as food by another, depending on the cultural tradition of the various ethnic groups. Birds are regularly used for food or traditional medicine. Even if birds account for just a small proportion of the bushmeat sold in markets, many species are hunted and traded for bushmeat. Based on a systematic review of all the literature freely available on internet, this paper analyses data about the presence of birds in bushmeat market in ten West and Central African countries. The present analysis shows that 85.3 % of traded species in Africa are present within West and Central African markets, and of these 92 % are Least Concern by IUCN red list criteria. Only 0.7 % of traded species are Critically Endangered, and all of them are birds-of-prey (Accipitriformes). Nigeria is the country with the highest number of bird species recorded in the markets (over 60 % of the species traded in all the African continent). This trend is due to the fact that Nigeria is by far the most populated African country.