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.
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