Weekly Post: BUKIT JALIL

It's been five weeks since Hendra and I started working as Research Assistants under Animal Neighbours Project. We have visited a number of human-macaque conflict sites in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor, where we were lucky enough to have the opportunity to learn and observe this issue directly.

One of the conflict sites is Bukit Jalil Recreational Park.

Bukit Jalil park is one of the popular recreational park in Kuala Lumpur which covers an expansive green area of 80 acres. Besides providing a green space for the city dwellers, this city park also serves as a home for troops of long-tailed macaques.

However, throughout the years, visitors' feeding activity cause behavioural change in the macaques. Feeding by human can cause habituation in these primates- macaques are becoming less fearful of humans and will learn to associate plastics with food as visitors always bring food in plastic bags to feed them. As a result, they will approach or even chase visitors that bring plastic bags (even if the plastic bag contains non-food item) and will find the opportunity to seize it from the visitors.

Figure 1: Visitors come and feed the macaques. 

Getting chased by these primates is an intimidating experience to both workers and joggers in the park. It is very important for people to understand that this type of unwanted behaviour is mostly non-random, i.e. macaques will highly unlikely to chase people out of the blue. A study assessed human-monkey conflict in University Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) found that macaques usually chased students carrying food to steal it and also to scare away students that are walking near or crossing over their territory. Another study in Singapore concludes that most interactions between human and macaques happened when human carries food or food cues (plastic bags or food package), while some interactions occurred due to aggression or provocation by human.

Litter and damaged facilities done by macaques were also frequently observed in Bukit Jalil park. Macaques were seen to be able to access the rubbish bins around the park and which causes an unpleasant sight and smell on a daily basis. They even often enter the public prayer rooms available in the park by opening the windows themselves and rummage through the room. Besides creating debris and causing disarray, there were a list of property damage done by the macaques, including broken lamps, roof tiles and electrical switches.

Figure 2: A macaque come to the public toilet area and trying to remove the toilet mirror (Pic by En Shahrul).

Figure 3: Roof tiles were dislodged and broken (Pic by En Shahrul). 

Human-macaque conflict in Bukit Jalil highlights several issues- feeding activity, lack of awareness among the visitors and inadequate infrastructure to resist the macaques' unwanted behaviours. These issues are similar to other sites that we have visited. In order to start mitigating human-macaque conflict, the process is very much alike when tackling other problems such as rising crime. For example, for someone that lives in a city that has high crime rate, they will need to take extra precautions and mitigation measures to ensure their own safety and property- such as installing and upgrading home security, guarding the windows and setting up neighbourhood crime watch.

Similarly, to mitigate human-wildlife conflict in a conflict-prone area, extra efforts will be required.

Are you curious about the efforts that can be taken to reduce human-wildlife conflict? Well, that will be another blog post for another time 😉

Acknowledgement:

Special thanks to Encik Shahrul who works in Bukit Jalil and kindly provide us the information and pictures on the current human-macaque conflict in the park.

References:

About Jalil Park at: http://www.visitkl.gov.my/visitklv2/index.php?r=column/cthree&id=62&place_id=1026

Md-Zain, B. M., et al. (2014). Human-Macaque Conflict at the Main Campus of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. Pertanika Journal of Tropical Agricultural Science, 37 (1), 73-85.

Md-Zain, B. M., et al. (2011). Campus Monkeys of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia: Nuisance Problems and Students' Perceptions. In M.D. Gumert et al. (Eds.), Monkeys on the Edge: Ecology and Management of Long-Tailed Macaques and their Interface with Humans (pp. 101-117). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Sha, J. C. M., et al. (2009). Macaque-Human Interactions and the Societal Perceptions of Macaques in Singapore. American Journal of Primatology, 71, 825-839. 

Mitigation Strategies for Human-Wildlife Conflicts

The human impacts on the environment has escalated since the last 300 years, marking the beginning of a new era called the Anthropocene. 

In a heavily human-dominated era, wildlife are forced to live in much smaller and fragmented habitats than ever before, eventually leading to more frequent contacts and possible conflicts between human and wildlife, thus, raising more human-wildlife conflict (HWC).

The impacts of HWC are far-reaching. In India, for example, it was recorded that elephant attacks result in over 400 fatalities annually on average. A study analysed the impacts of HWC over 20-year period from wildlife in Chitwan National Park, Nepal, where over 4000 incidents were recorded, including attacks on humans, livestock depredation, property damage and crop raiding. 

Another study demonstrated that besides the visible impacts such as injury and fatality, HWC can also cause hidden impacts by affecting the psychological well-being of the people affected. Mitigating conflicts through guarding crops, for example,  was shown to be closely related to fatigue and increased alcohol consumption in adults, while causing poor school attendance and performance in children and teenagers. On the other hand, as a result of this HWC, farmers and livestock owners are usually involved in retaliation killing and can cause a significant population decline and hence increase the risk of extinction of these wildlife.

To date, there have been more than hundreds of mitigation strategies proposed in order to reduce the human-wildlife conflicts. It is crucial that a mitigation strategy aims to ensure both human well-being and wildlife conservation are not jeopardized during the process. 

Here, we have documented a few mitigation strategies that proven to be effective to reduce HWC conflict:

Guard Animals

Grazing land for livestock represents more than one-third of the global land area, accounting for about 360 millions of cattle and over 600 millions of sheep and goats. Predation on livestock by wildlife is a threat to both agricultural output, economics and livelihoods of local people. Up to 3% of livestock in North America and Europe were lost to carnivores, while it was higher in Africa and Asia, where up to 18% loss was recorded.

One of the well-known strategy is by using livestock guardian dogs. These guardian dogs have been implemented since centuries ago in Europe and Asia to protect livestock from predators and thieves. Many studies show that the use of livestock guardian dogs is effective in protecting livestock with significant reduction in livestock losses and cessation of predation activity. Livestock guardian dogs have been implemented all over the world, for example, dogs in Namibia protect livestock from cheetahs and in the USA, the dogs were used where wolves were present. However, besides the expense of obtaining these dogs, the producers needed to invest a substantial amount of time to train and learn about these dogs. Additionally, the effectiveness of guardian dogs depends on a number of factors, including the number of livestock they have to protect, the number of dogs used and the individual dogs' capabilities.

Apart from dogs, donkeys are also used as guard animals. They are highly vigilant and fearless against predators - where they will find the predators, chase, kick and even bite them. Donkeys are used to protect livestock against lions in some farms in Kenya. 

Fencing

Barrier fences have a long history in managing wildlife species in many parts of the world. Since the 1960s, electric fences were used to control wildlife invasion problems. It has many advantages compared to the traditional wire fence, including reduced cost, labour and maintenance. Electrical fences focus more on the psychological barrier than physical - where it highly depends on the animal's capabilities to remember the negative effect from touching the fence. 

A study compared the severity of HWC experience by the communities living near two different wildlife parks in Kenya; Maasai Mara Game Reserve (an unfenced park) and Lake Nakuru National Park (a fenced park). They found that the severity and the number of animal species involved in the HWC were higher in the area neighbouring the unfenced Game Reserve than the fenced National Park. During the study period, the areas surrounding the unfenced Game reserve recorded almost 10x more number of wildlife problem cases (1833 cases) compared to the areas surrounding the fenced National Park (186 cases). Moreover, 19 animal species including elephant, lion and hippopotamus, were recorded to be involved in HWC in the unfenced Game Reserve study areas, while only 5 species were recorded in the fenced National Park areas. 

From this study, fences were shown to be an effective solution to reduce the severity of HWC. However, fences also have its own limitation to certain species such as baboons, monkeys and warthogs. Over time, the primates can learn to carefully climb over the electric fence, while the warthogs can easily dig a hole beneath the fence. 

Olfactory Deterrents

Deterrent method provides a non-lethal control to reduce HWC. Olfactory or smell deterrent refers to substance that generates an unpleasant or painful smell, or it can also be a substance that can stimulate hormone that triggers fear in the animals; all enough to discourage the animals from proceeding the area. 

Chilli and tobacco were shown to be effective olfactory deterrents against elephants. Capsaicin resin, an active component of chilli peppers can cause an extremely unpleasant irritation and burning sensation. Upon implementing this chilli-based deterrents, farms near the Kakum National Park in Ghana, which recorded the highest elephant activities, harvested up to 7 bags of maize per hectare compared to only 0.5 bags or less per hectare before the implementation. Similarly to electric fences, chilli-based deterrents were shown to be less effective against primates such as baboons - where the effects were only successful for a short period of time.

To sum up, HWC is inevitable in this Anthropocene era, given that human population is continuously growing, driving and forcing wildlife to live in much smaller and fragmented habitat, leading to more frequent contact and hence conflicts. Therefore, it is very important that we keep reminding ourselves that wildlife is NOT THE ENEMY, and try our best effort to reduce HWC for the sake of both people and wildlife. 

Definition:

• Anthropocene: Human-dominated era, it could be said that the Anthropocene have started since the late 18th century, when analyses of air trapped in polar ice showed the beginning of growing global concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane. 

More about the mitigation strategies:

Barua, M., Bhagwat, S.A., & Jadhav, S. (2013). The Hidden Dimensions of Human-Wildlife Conflicts: Health Impacts, Opportunity and Transaction Costs. Biological Conservation, 157, 309-316.

Crutzen, P.J. (2002). Geology of Mankind. Nature, 415, 23.

Human-Wildlife Conflict: An Interview with Dr. Michael Hutchins

at: https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2013/03/09/human-wildlife-conflict-an-interview-with-dr-michael-hutchins/?fbclid=IwAR1drnZEecFaGI2DRv77p3wzAlB7tH-piwDAdXUgWjwKSA4NHO2euuLcTfo

Human-Wildlife Conflict Management at: http://www.fao.org/3/i1048e/i1048e04.pdf 

Kassilly, F. N., Tsingalia, H.M., & Gossow, H. (2008). Mitigating Human-Wildlife Conflicts Through Wildlife Fencing: A Kenyan Case Study. Wildlife Biology in Practise, 4 (1), 30-38.

Lamichhane, B.R., Persoon, G.A., Leirs, H., Poudel, S., et al. (2018). Spatio-Temporal Patterns of Attacks on Human and Economic Losses from Wildlife in Chitwan National Park, Nepal. PLoS ONE, 13 (4), 1-18.

Suryawanshi, K. R., Redpath, S. M., Bhatnagar, Y. V., et al. (2017). Impact of Wild Prey Availability on Livestock Predation by Snow Leopards. Royal Society Open Science, 4 (170026), 1-11.

Van Bommel, L., & Johnson, C. N. (2012). Good Dog! Using Livestock Guardian Dogs to Protect Livestock from Predators in Australia's Extensive Grazing Systems. Wildlife Research, 39, 220-229.