The Barbary macaques can facilitate ecotourism, but the inclusion of human food
and human disturbance often results in the modification of primates behavior.
For example : the presence of tourists may stress the Barbary macaques physiologically (Maréchal et al., 2011) and may also influence the activity budget and feeding behavior of groups living in tourist sites in Morocco (El Alami et al., 2012).
I'd expect the addition of human food to their diets would have negative effects on their health. Primates are known to require specific diets, and human diets are known to cause high incidences of diabetes in this group of mammals.
Maybe some global context. Recreational hunters and (eco-)tourist operators traditionally attract target species to desirable sites by supply of food, water or security in many places. The supplied food, water or security is not necessarily "human" . Known Interventions are, among many, to split the wildlife population species in a small contact zone group and a lager non-contact group. Other mitigations are sale of natural food to tourists on-site and prohibition and policing of human food provision. Non-food attractors are also applied and can be further developed. Eco-tourism can also offer guided excursions to sites where wildlife gathers naturally, with structural provisions to avoid disturbance. This is common with bird observatories, but also done for bear sighting in the Apennines and seals in Namibia.
Beyond organized feeding, tourist and towns people are also known, consciously or unconsciously, to feed wildlife and more so bird life. In any many European towns doves, sea gulls and other birds as well as foxes have become plagues. Bear and wolf have become urban scavengers as well in places and periods. Similarly, vultures in African towns.
The name of the game is to recognize the desire of humans to be in contact with nature and not only prohibit in protected areas, as is standard practice. The first encounter with a NP is usually a large numbers of prohibition signs rather than an offer to visitors for (guided) photo-safari's, observatories, play-grounds, camping sites and so on. .
Dear Abderrazak,
The question not so simple, and sense is laying deeply in future relations between people, and animals. A lot of species, previously rare now can survey due to better suffer against people (sinantropization ?). In my village (I'm living with my kids and wife practically in the Carpathians forest) exist one previously the very rare crocidur from shrews. Last time I catch it into the traps in my house even more frequently than mice. But now can harm - that’s price for better situation for population development.
Other example - the black stork. Extra rare (saw it only once being student!) not long time ago even made short 15 min film about it.
Other example from Indonesia with Sumatra elephant. It survy only due to domestication. Cultivation in capture like rhinos, as well is form of partial domestication, but this is the only way...
With macaques situation is worth. They are very close to human, so being infected can be source of epidemiological danger. Being in one monastery in Burma on hill top with nice landscape overview, we were ordered to divest boots, but everywhere was a lot of sheet of these animals. What is religion that permits anti-sanitary for animals and shows imitation of it for people? Moreover behavior of some males was the very aggressive!
With one British professor teaching in Singapore, who visits with me and my wife NP Bako in Malaysia, I had interesting adventure. I fed some wild pigs by bananas in the park. As well, enough active were there some macaques. Waiting for back ship we noted the animal, trying penetrate into the bin with litter. Professor tries to forbid it to do...
The animal made perfect maneuver and picked the hurt pharmacy of professor...
Had it had be bad consequences, as professor needs his tablets enough frequently.
So, from monkeys more problems, than attraction. Sometimes they play for locals just the role of imitation of wilderness, like in Bali in Indonesia. Better not to visit the small forest with one group of long-tailed macaques as attraction. Nothing amazing...
Andrey
Relatively little research has actually investigated the overall impact of human provisioning of wild animals, but it's an important question to ask. While the activity budgets of habituated wild primates are unquestionably altered, there is also evidence that provisioning leads to direct and indirect harm for animal individuals. Loudon et al. (2006) demonstrated that wild lemurs living nearby humans and eating discarded/provisioned food had increased parasitic loads, which still needs to be investigated in other species. Research by Fuentes & Gamerl (2005) and Fa (1992) seems to indicate certain groups of humans are disproportionately attacked by aggressive monkeys during provisioning events, which may indicate site-specific threats to interacting primates/humans. Understanding which humans are suffering the most from primate interactions is especially important given the question of disease transmission. Engel et al. (2002) demonstrated that humans who feed habituated macaques in Bali, like Andrey described, had increased risk of exposure to the herpes virus, and women appear to be at a higher risk of exposure to rabies as a result of greater risk of monkey attacks (Pandey et al., 2002; Gautret et al., 2007). It has yet to be established to what extent conflicts can be attributed to human behavior (which could be prevented with education/legislation), or by wild primates targeting certain demographics perceived as "easier targets".
When comparing pros and cons- ecotourism websites and ethnoprimatology surveys may be the best sources (see Lee (2010) for a good intro), while finding the many disadvantages of human/primate interactions is a bit more difficult, as this issue does not have a dedicated field. You may have to investigate each risk individually, (search medical journals/health organizations for risks of disease exposures, behavioral journals for alterations in activity budgets, and site-specific longitudinal studies for demographic specific risks).
Good luck, I would be happy to discuss the varied risks further and/or share more of the literature I have collected during my own research if you remain interested.
-Robin
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Engel, G. A., Jones-Engel, L., Schillaci, M. A., Suaryana, K. G., Putra, A., Fuentes, A., & Henkel, R. (2002). Human exposure to herpesvirus B-seropositive macaques, Bali, Indonesia. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 8(8), 789-795.
Fa, J. E. (1992). Visitor‐directed aggression among the Gibraltar macaques. Zoo Biology, 11(1), 43-52.
Fuentes, A., & Gamerl, S. (2005). Disproportionate participation by age/sex classes in aggressive interactions between long‐tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) and human tourists at Padangtegal monkey forest, Bali, Indonesia. American Journal of Primatology, 66(2), 197-204.
Gautret, P., Schwartz, E., Shaw, M., Soula, G., Gazin, P., Delmont, J., ... & Torresi, J. (2007). Animal-associated injuries and related diseases among returned travellers: a review of the GeoSentinel Surveillance Network. Vaccine, 25(14), 2656-2663.
Lee, P. C. (2010). Sharing space: Can ethnoprimatology contribute to the survival of nonhuman primates in human‐dominated globalized landscapes? American Journal of Primatology, 72(10), 925-931.
Loudon, J. E., Sauther, M. L., Fish, K. D., Hunter-Ishikawa, M., & Ibrahim, Y. J. (2006). One reserve, three primates: applying a holistic approach to understand the interconnections among ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta), Verreaux's sifaka (Propithecus verreauxi), and humans (Homo sapiens) at Beza Mahafaly Special Reserve, Madagascar. Ecological and Environmental Anthropology, 2(2), 54-74.
Pandey, P., Shlim, D. R., Cave, W., & Springer, M. F. (2002). Risk of possible exposure to rabies among tourists and foreign residents in Nepal. Journal of Travel Medicine, 9(3), 127-131.
its true tourist change their habits and their natural life even in India at Ooty and elephanta caves these primates are behaving like pets and they eat all what people are eating like monkeys at Elephanta are drinking fruity from thrown packages. on ooty people are selling corns or some fruits only to give monkey by tourists
Publications of El Alami in this theme:
El Alami A., Van Lavieren E., Aboufatima R., Chait A. (2012). Differences in Activity Budgets and Diet Between Semiprovisioned and Wild-Feeding Groups of the Endangered Barbary Macaque (Macaca sylvanus) in the Central High Atlas Mountains, Morocco. American Journal of Primatology, 74, 210-216.
*El Alami A., Chait A. (2013). Comparison of the terrestriality of Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus) between tourist and wild sites in the region of Ouzoud, Morocco. Mammalia 78 (4), 539-542
*El Alami A., Chait A. (2014). Distribution of the Endangered Barbary macaque and Human-Macaque Interaction in the tourist region of Ouzoud, Central High Atlas of Morocco. African Journal of Ecology 53 (3), 375-377.
El Alami A., Chait A. (2015b). Roles of tourism in the local people opinion regarding human-macaque conflict in the central High Atlas, Morocco. Revue de primatologie : Varia 6 (2015).
Dear Vincent Raoult
yes it is true, Morocco, macaques attractions are signs of aggression, in addition the majority have problems with teeth.
Dear Hein Van Gils
In general, disturbance of wildlife by tourists is a factor potentially long-term viability of these species. especially dependence on humans for food and the introduction of artificial foods in their diets disturb their behavior and physiology.
Dear Andrey A. Kovalchuk
yes I touch man-monkeys is safe. many pathogen can be transmitted to monkeys. and this is a real threat because a pathogen can cause the disappearance of a group quickly.
Dear Robin Rowland
In tourist sites, the activity budget, food, territoriality / arboricolisme are affected by man (saw references of El Alami)
dear Dr. Meena Potdar
Thank you for references
Yes when primates become dependent on humans for food and they get used to artificial food ... they were not likely to live in the wild. And it is far from the conservation of wild animals because it is simply the transformation of wild animals in pets, companies, pleasure, ... .then that species conservation is to protect them in their natural environments and away from the people.
Dear Abderrazak El Alami,
Very interesting question and discussion! If I may add some references to the discussion.
Dubois, S., & Fraser, D. (2013). A framework to evaluate wildlife feeding in research, wildlife management, tourism and recreation. Animals, 3(4), 978-994.
Orams, M. B. (2002). Feeding wildlife as a tourism attraction: a review of issues and impacts. Tourism management, 23(3), 281-293.
Newsome, D., & Rodger, K. (2008). To feed or not to feed: a contentious issue in wildlife tourism. Too close for comfort: contentious issues in human-wildlife encounters. Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales, Mosman, 255-270.
Maréchal, L., Semple, S., Majolo, B., & MacLarnon, A. (2016). Assessing the effects of tourist provisioning on the health of wild Barbary Macaques in Morocco. PloS one, 11(5), e0155920.
Overall, most research indicates that feeding wild non-human primates is negative for their health but has also negative impacts in relation to their conservation as it is likely to increase potential human-animal conflicts. If it is done, despite recommendations, provisioning wildlife must be highly regulated.
Please let me know if you cannot access these papers.
Best, Laetitia
Just read below research papers
Lee, P. C., & Priston, N. E. (2005). Human attitudes to primates: perceptions of pests, conflict and consequences for primate conservation. Commensalism and conflict: The human-primate interface, 4.
Macfie, E. J., & Williamson, E. A. (2010). Best practice guidelines for great ape tourism (No. 38). IUCN.
Green, R., & Giese, M. (2004). Negative effects of wildlife tourism on wildlife. Wildlife Tourism: Impacts, Management and Planning. CRC for Sustainable Tourism and Common Ground Publishing, Altona, 106, 81-97.
Xiang, Z., Yu, Y., Yang, M., Yang, J., Niao, M., & Li, M. (2011). Does flagship species tourism benefit conservation? A case study of the golden snub-nosed monkey in Shennongjia National Nature Reserve. Chinese Science Bulletin, 56(24), 2553-2558.
Newsome, D., & Rodger, K. (2008). To feed or not to feed: a contentious issue in wildlife tourism. Too Close For Comfort: Contentious Issues in Human–Wildlife Encounters’.(Eds D. Lunney, A. Munn and W. Meikle.) pp, 255-270.
Hi
I am sending some research papers herewith as an attachments; that may be more useful for your question
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