RESEARCH TEAM

The Phana Monkey Project is about to reach a crucial stage. A week from now five  researchers, all recent Msc graduates in Animal Behaviour from Exeter University in the UK, will arrive in Phana to begin a  project which will provide the basis for  the establishment of Don Chao Poo Forest as a research field site as well as educational and informational material for schoolchildren and visitors to the forest.

This team will be carrying out most of the research which you can find listed on the RESEARCH page on the bar above. In addition, they will be conducting some research of their own along lines that they discussed last Friday with Dr Joah Madden of Exeter University. Details of their research will appear on this site.

NO APE MUSEUM

As far as the Phana Monkey Project goes, we have not been idle in the last few months. We have held meetings with the Phana Municipality to clarify our role and theirs. At least one of the original intentions has been abandoned: the money is no longer available for an “Ape Museum” to be built in the forest. Although the promise of this was perhaps the key starting point for the then-named Macaque Project, I think all of us who have carried the idea forward see abandoning that particular part of the project as a good thing. There was every chance that had a building been provided, there would have been no money available to keep it staffed and maintained; on top of that, building inside the forest would have been a major disruption. There are already two small buildings in the forest which have been abandoned and left to the monkeys to play in — their main playthings being ceiling and roof tiles, which they love to pull off and destroy.

COMMUNITY CENTRE

The Tetsaban have suggested an alternative to an ‘Ape Museum’ in the forest. The old market building is to be converted into a kind of community centre, and it will provide three main spaces. At one end will be a community IT centre with 22 computer stations. There will be a similar-sized space at the other end of the building which we will be able to use to show videos to visiting schoolchildren. The central space will be for occasional community meetings, and we will provide an exhibition detailing macaque information and photographs in that space.

The tetsaban is providing the materials for the conversion of this building but the community will provide the labour. In the following pictures you see the headman of Moo 7 and his wife working on the new floor, which they have completed since the photos were taken.

CLEANING UP THE FOREST

Last week we worked with the tetsaban / municipality and some students from the school they run, to clear the forest of litter. It is amazing how quickly litter accumulates, and monitoring it will be an important focus of the upcoming research, so that hopefully we can recommend some practical ways to reduce the litter produced and ensure that litter is removed frequently. Our monitoring will be made more useful because we have established a ‘zero-litter’ environment before the monitoring begins. This way we should be able to get a clearer picture of when, where, and how much litter is dropped over a weekend, for example. Already the tetsaban have put a new cleaning team in place to collect and remove litter and we are sure this will be a great improvement on the previous ‘emergency’ cleaning sessions before big events.

DON CHAO POO FOREST RESEARCH CENTRE

The Phana Monkey project has also been working to provide a centre for researchers to use while they are in Phana, and the team from Exeter University will be the first to do so. The building is almost ready, and the only thing which may prevent them moving in as soon as they arrive is that water and/or electricity may not be connected in time. Details of this centre will appear here as soon as all is ready.

ROAD TRAFFIC FATALITY

Last week we experienced our first recorded road traffic fatality, an adult male killed on the road outside the forest just before 8 am. As it happened, Pensri and I were on our early morning cycling exercise, so Pensri put the still-warm monkey in a plastic bag (there were still plenty lying around at the beginning of the week) and took him home. Our first thought was taxidermy but it quickly became apparent that no-one locally had the skill and experience to do this; we soon realised, too, that there was litle point in creating a life-like specimen when we have more than 400 live ones! With advice from Prof Dr Suchinda at Chulalongkorn University, we decided to preserve and display the skeleton. The person in charge of the museum in the Biology Department at Chula sent us some insects (in a box, via the Railway parcels service) and for more than a week now these insects have been nibbling away at the cooked flesh and revealing more of the skeleton. When the process is completed we will post pictures of the skeleton and more detail regarding the process. For the time being, here are a few of the photos we took of our monkey soon after the accident. The monkey had been hit a glancing blow on the side of the head which had fractured his skull but not smashed it. Nevertheless, bleeding was still evident through his nose and mouth, so no pictures of his injury are included here. The blow struck him on the left side of his head, the side not shown here. He was a fine specimen as can be seen from his teeth. (CLICK on the photos for an enlarged view.)

And the thing is, the monkeys do obviously love all this. When I walk into the back of the forest, to the undisturbed parts away from people, traffic and buildings, there are no monkeys to be seen. Possibly they use this area for sleeping, but I doubt it. When I have seen the monkeys coming down to the ground early in the morning it has always been from trees close to the road.

The ceremonies and celebrations held in the forest at certain times of the year are a major form of disturbance. But again, the monkeys seem to love these occasions. Often they stay out of sight while most of the ceremonial activity is going on, but the people who come to the forest and the food they bring with them attract their attention and the monkeys are just waiting for most people to depart and then they start scavenging the left-over food and bags and so on.

Just recently the forest has seen the annual retreat by monks, mae chee, and some lay people, about 200 people altogether camping in the forest for 10 days of meditation and Buddhist teaching. Every morning they go on alms round, and the lay people who offer the food stay to eat a late breakfast/early lunch in the forest. The monkeys stay away but they are alert to any chance to do a bit of scavenging.

I took a walk around the ‘Buddha image trail’ with some Thai friends and a young woman from Guatemala who had come to Phana with them. On this occasion there were several monkeys on and around the path, something I haven’t seen before. They were there either because their usual places had been taken over by the monks, or perhaps because there were more humans than usual using the path. And as well as disturbed forest, long-tailed macaques love to be near humans, in the hope of getting some food, mainly, but also it would seem that they like our company as much as we like theirs.

Here are some of the monkeys I met that day. You can click on the images to enlarge them.

So the forest is disturbed and the monkeys are disturbed, but they seem to take it all in their stride. It’s all part of the experience of being a long-tailed macaque in Don Chao Poo Forest, Phana.

One recent morning I got to Don Jik just in time to see a large male crossing the road at the bridge. He was crossing from the north to the south, and went down to the flat, sandy clearing where a farmer (who was absent) has a hut, a bag of stones and a catapault. Within minutes of his arrival on the south side, an almighty uproar broke out. Momentarily I thought he had been attacked by a dog, and I continued to think so as more and more monkeys came down from the trees, all making loud, angry growling sort of noises. I couldn’t see any action but could hear it well enough, and a few moments later that same large male came back up onto the road, chased by other monkeys. They saw him off across the road and into the riverside trees. They didn’t follow him, but gathered in a group on the bridge.

They were joined by all the other monkeys, all of them coming from the trees on the south side. They  gathered on the roadside and it was easy to count them: males, females, young adults, juveniles, infants: 20 of them in total. This was the first time I had seen all of them together at the same time, although I had counted 20 before, as they slowly emerged from the forest. It was pretty clear that they were all aware of the nature of this event: a crisis for the group, and they had responded as a group and were staying together in group solidarity.

I didn’t use my camera that day out of respect for their nervous and excitable condition, but a couple of days later I did catch the alpha male with one of his older female mates in a touching little scene that said a lot about what had gone on.

Click to enlarge the picture. You will notice that the female is attending to a gash on the male’s back, while she herself seems to have suffered a loss of hair on top of her head.

Now she has noticed that he also has an injury to his left forearm:

“I’ll take a look at that for you, dear,” she murmurs (sorry about the anthropomorphism!), and she does.

He is being very stoical about it all, isn’t he? If you enlarge this photo you will see more clearly the injury similar to his on the top of her head, which suggests that she played a full part in the scrap when the colony was invaded. She may even have been the focus of it. Anyway, the old male seems very appreciative of the attention he has received and repays her with a bit of gentle grooming.

The first monkey I ever saw at Don Jik was an older male, about a year ago, and I caught him on camera leaving the bridge along the road towards Don Chao Poo.

He was not particularly happy, I thought. The picture below is of very poor quality but agin if you enlarge it, you will see that he is carrying an injury similar to the ones we have seen on the male and female above.

I assumed at the time that he was an intruder from Don Chao Poo.  Certainly, at Don Chao Poo there are older male individuals who seem to spend their time outside any group. Presumably, they are former alpha males who have been supplanted by younger, stronger, more virile rivals. Now I am not so sure. It is also possible that he was being expelled from the colony at Don Jik. Of course, it may well not be the same individual, and he may have been expelled or outcast from either colony (or even both), and attempting to make his way into a new one or to return to his original one.

What happens to these outcast males would seem to be an interesting subject for further research.

I am not qualified to review this book — it is written by and intended for people with a much more academic interest in long-tailed macaques than me. What I can say, though, is that it could not have been published at a more opportune time as far as the Phana Macaque Project goes, since it deals with all the aspects of living alongside these monkeys which are of interest and concern to us in Phana.  It also points to problems we have not yet come up against; and most important of all, it has recommendations for solving some of the problems that we have already encountered or seen the possibility of emerging in the future.

Here are some  quotes which seem particularly relevant to us in Phana. They come from the Thai primatologist who is advising the Phana Macaque Project:

‘In Thailand, there are pros and cons to having a troop of long-tailed macaques living close to humans. Many people benefit from the monkeys, such as banana vendors, hotel owners and shop keepers, but there are also people who live near monkey populations who do not gain any economic benefits but receive damage. Up to now, there are no concrete management plans nor primatologist participation to overcome the problem of local overcrowding and conflict with humans. The local overcrowding of long-tailed macaques is a delicate matter, and to solve the problem we need mutual understanding among people…

…Management and conservation plans will require cooperation from various groups, including primatologists, veterinarians, local residents, conservationists, governmental agencies, and NGOs. Educational programs are needed to raise awareness in the public, government, and conservation sectors. Education will need to focus on population management and controlling human interaction with long-tailed macaques.’ (Suchinda Malaivijitinond et al., Human impact on long-tailed macaques in Thailand, in Monkeys on the Edge, Part II, The human-macaque interface, Cambridge University Press 2011.)

I will include further quotes from the book in future posts.

Research teams from Thailand: Prof. Dr. Suchinda Malaivijitnond

Primate Research Unit, Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand

Tel/Fax: 02-2185275

E-mail: suchinda.m@chula.ac.th

Mr. Sarawoot Gomuttapong (Graduate student)

Mr. Sarun Asawanuchit (Graduate student)

Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand

Research teams from Japan: Prof. Dr. Yuzuru Hamada

Evolutionary Morphology Section, Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University, Inuyama, Japan

Tel: +81-568-63-0521, Fax: (+81)-568-61-5775

E-mail: hamada@pri.kyoto-u.ac.jp

Mr. Yahiro Kazuya (Undergraduate student)

Faculty of Liberal Arts, Kyoto University, Japan

Mr. Fujimoto Shunpei (Undergraduate student)

Faculty of Agriculture, Kyoto University, Japan

Mr. Mizutani Hiroki (Undergraduate student)

Faculty of Economy,Kyoto University,Japan

Ms. Okazaki Sachiko (Undergraduate student)

Laboratory of Veterinary Physiology, Department of Veterinary

Medicine, Faculty of Agriculture, Tokyo University of

Agriculture and Technology, Fuchu, Tokyo, Japan

Research Duration: September 8-9, 2011

The brief survey of monkeys at Phana was done by a research team, within a later half day of September 8 and a few hours in the morning of September 9, 2011, as a part of the International Symposium “Biodiversity and ecology of wildlife in Thailand”. This symposium was hosted by the Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand in collaboration with the Primate Research Institute of Kyoto University, Japan.

Monkeys at Phana District,  Amnat Charoen Province are Macaca fascicularis with common names of crab-eating macaques, cynomolgus macaques or long-tailed macaques. In Thailand, they are locally called by various names, such as “Ling Samae (“Ling” = monkey, Samae = name of crab at the mangrove forest)”, Ling Hang Yaow (Hang = tail, Yaow = long)” or “Ling Thep Pranom (which is based on the crest hair being like “Wai or Pranom”)”.

Generally, their distribution is from southern Bangladesh, eastward to Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam, and southward to Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, and Indonesia, including the Nicobar islands in India. In Thailand, their distribution is from the lower northern (latitude 16.30 °N, at Pichit and Nakhon Sawan Province) to the southernmost Thailand (latitude 6.15 °N, at Yala and Satun Province).

In each sex, they can be categorized into 4 age-classes as follows:

Adult female: fully mature female with huge body size, but smaller than adult male, big, red and long nipples, the sex skin is reddening or swelling during ovulation time.

Sub-adult female: female with intermediate body size, small, not very red and short nipples, the sex skin is reddening or swelling during ovulation time. At Phana, some sub-adult female showed the scotum-like swelling (Malaivijitnond et al., 2007).

Adult male: fully mature male monkeys with huge body size, fully grown canines and the testes fully descended into the scrotal sac.

Sub-adult male: male monkeys with intermediate body size, partially grown canines and the testes partially descended into the scrotal sac.

Juvenile: in male monkeys, small body size and the testes are in the abdominal cavity, not descended into the scrotum. In females, small body size and they do not have sex skin swelling and reddening. Both sexes usually stay together as a group.

Infant: baby monkey attaching or hanging with mother (age <1 year), small body size, many wrinkles and black hair on face, usually staying within a distance of 1 m from mother.

Don Chao Poo (Sacred forest) in Phana District, Amnat Charoen Province (N15O 36’36.4”, E104O 50’ 53.1”) is located in the distribution range of this species. A population of long-tailed macaques inhabiting Phana was first counted in October 2004. There were 3 groups of monkeys with 378 individuals counted, but we estimated that they should have about 600 monkeys (Malaivijitnond et al., 2011). The habitat of Phana monkeys is a patchy forest as we particularly found in many locations in Thailand. During this time of our visit, 3 groups and 464 individuals were counted (but we estimated that they should have more than 600 monkeys, because during the day of our survey it was slightly raining and many monkeys hid in the forest).

The macaque population is living in a good condition. No obese monkeys were found (which is regularly seen in many tourist attraction sites, such as Sarn Pra Karn, Lopburi Province). However, the population composition is biased to younger age classes; infants and juveniles are of  higher frequency and about 60% of adult females are lactating with infants. It means that the fecundity is high and the population high and  is increasing rapidly.

We could see many social activities between monkeys here, such as fighting between female monkeys, grooming (both autogrooming and allogroming), copulating, playing in juveniles, and foraging for foods.

As macaques tended to be found in the visitors’ place or on the road, they appear to depend on provisioning from humans. High calorie, but low quality, foods, such as potato chips, could lead to the population increase. Provisioning to macaques also raises other problems of injured monkeys. Provisioning on the road while humans are in the cars persuades monkeys to the road and has caused a bad habit of begging for food, and many monkeys got injured by traffic accidents. Several macaques are found with wounds remaining on their body, some are severe and some are light. Also, direct contact with monkeys can cause the bidirectional transmission of diseases between humans and monkeys, such as tuberculosis and simian viruses.

Phana monkeys have such a unique behavior of making tight aggregation of individuals, sometimes 20-40 individuals, which we have not seen in other groups of long-tailed macaques in Thailand. It usually occurs in monkeys living in a cold weather, such as in Japanese macaques.

The population is rather isolated from other populations of conspecifics, and thus the genetic heterogeneity is on the course of decreasing. The evidence indicating the low genetic variation (or inbreeding depression) in this group are a supernumerary nipple and light-coloured pelage. Provisioning would have driven the higher ranked lineage to increase in population more than the lower ranked. A monkey with a tumor was also observed.

Human – monkey conflicts are not yet severe, though it threatens to become severe as in Lopburi and Khao Wang Petchaburi in the future. Damage on humans (injury by biting and scratching, or falling down by threatening of monkeys), at houses (stealing food and damage on houses) or cars would occur. On the other hand the counter-measures such as catching and translocation of monkeys by humans would be taken.

Recommendations

Phana macaques and wildlife are the symbol of harmonic co-existence of life of humans and nature. Monkeys and wildlife are treasure of Phana. However, management is indispensable as they are under the influence of human impact. Recommendations for management are written as follows:

1. Control of population: The amount of provisioning should be controlled. Contraceptive protocol, which do not influence on the sex-hormone secretion, should be considered, such as tubule (of vas deferens) ligation in male monkeys. Population structure and lineage structure (kin groups in the troop) should be studied.

2. Provisioning should be made only inside park. Provisioning on or along road should be banned. Construction of bumps on the road to reduce speed of cars and to prevent traffic accident on monkeys.

Provisioning foods should be scattered in many points, then all monkeys can have access to the food, and the higher rank monkeys can’t monopolize food.

3. Human-monkey interactions and control of bidirectional transmission:

To prevent conflict becoming severe, the way of provisioning should be controlled. Direct contact between humans and monkeys should be kept minimal. Instruction to visitors for the way of contact with monkeys, such as not to look at monkey’s eyes, which means threatening monkeys and monkeys will counter attack to that person.

To prevent zoonosis and humanosis, transmission of diseases to and from monkeys, the way of contact, including the way of provisioning and watching monkeys should be instructed.

Drinking water for monkeys without contamination should be installed, because nowadays the monkeys drink dirty (contaminated with pathogens) water.

Keep clean the provisioning site.

Fruit trees should be planted for monkeys to eat.

1. Malaivijitnond S, Hamada Y, Suryobroto B, Takenaka O. 2007. Female long-tailed macaques with scrotum-like structure. American Journal of Primatology. 69 (7):721-735.

2. Malaivijitnond S, Vazquez Y, Hamada Y. 2011. Human impact on long-tailed macaques in Thailand. (In Managing Commensalism in Long-tailed macaques, Lisa Jones-Engel, Michael Gumert, Augustin Fuentes, eds).CambridgeUniversityPress,UK. Pp. 120-160.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University, Japan and the Primate Research Unit, Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University for the grant support. We are grateful for the warm welcome and hospitality of Phana people while we visited there, especially to Khun Prachoenlarp Intarachan and Khun Surachet Thongphum for all arrangements, help and support. We also sincerely thank Khun Lawrence Whiting and Ajarn Pensri Whiting for accommodation and arrangement for our team members, and especially for introducing this project to us.

From their point of view, the monkeys have an almost perfect habitat. They live beside the small tree-lined river (Huay Phra Lao) which has some water all year round.

Looking South at Don Jik Bridge

Looking North at Don Jik Bridge

They spend time resting, playing and sleeping (and presumably foraging for food) in the river-side trees:

Natural setting, Don Jik

The monkeys spend some time on both sides of the road and could easily cross from one side to the other by going along either bank of the river below the bridge. But for some reason they prefer to cross the road, which is usually empty but also has some big, fast moving traffic at times — buses and trucks, mostly. The alpha male seems to act as a kind of crossing patrol. Here he is, striding about the road in a very confident manner:

Alpha male at Don Jik

The high-ranking female also acts as a kind of guardian, seeing that her offspring cross the road when she wants them to. I have heard her calling them on two occasions and she waits for a responding call before leaving the bridge. I have not been aware of hearing such calls in Don Chao Poo, but it is something I shall now be on the alert for.

High-rank female at Don Jik

Click on the photo to enlarge it, and you will see that she has a supernumerary nipple below her right normal one. (There may be two supernumary nipples, but I think the one on the right is a shadow only.) When she visited Phana earlier this year (September 8 and 9, 2011) Dr Suchinda Malaivijitinond noticed the same pattern on a female in Don Chao Poo Forest.

This might, of course, suggest that the two colonies are related. They are, after all, only about 2 kms apart as the crow flies (or the monkeys range). Local wisdom says that they were ‘dumped’ here about 5 years ago from a truck which had brought them from Don Chao Poo as part of a failed ‘kidnap’ attempt.

In Phana,  we have to continue down the road we have been going for the last thirty years or so. There can be no turning back.

But it is worth considering what it is that we have been doing for the last 30 years.

By feeding the colony that lives in Don Chao Poo, we have:

protected them from farmers and others who might have killed them in order to defend their crops and property;

limited their ‘ranging’  prolonged their lives, resulting in population growth and a diminishing share of their natural habitat and food supply;

made them become lazy and greedy;

made them become familiar with humans, unafraid of them, and sometimes aggressive towards them;

introduced them to  foods which may not be appropriate for them.

In effect, we have domesticated them.

On the other hand, if we had fired catapaults at them and had not fed them, they would have lived a more natural life. They would have remained the ‘wild’ creatures we imagine we want them to be.

But we would have been denied the feel-good factor.

Hopefully,  if Phana succeeds in its current aim to set up some sort of educational centre in or near Don Chao Poo, we will learn how to treat our monkeys better and begin to see them for themselves and not merely as a means of making ourselves feel good.

What is less certain is whether or not Phana gains anything from this tourism or whether the monkeys gain any real benefit from it. We gain litter, yes,  but that may be all other than a certain notoriety. But I wonder whether Phana needs to gain anything, at least in the sense of profiting from the presence of the monkeys.

The monkeys do make us feel good. Phana lives quite comfortably with them (give or take a few complaints from farmers whose land adjoins the forest). It has generally been regarded as auspicious that the monkeys live in Don Chao Poo, home to the town’s guardian spirit, and to four Buddha images.  People feel privileged to be host to the monkeys. The people who come from outside to feed them evidently feel good about doing so, even if some of the girls scream when large monkeys make a grab for food they are holding.

Why do we love the monkeys so?

They make us feel at one with nature, I think. We are consorting with ‘the wild things’ when we go into the forest to feed them. Feeding them makes us feel kind and generous.

Feeding these monkeys makes us forget that we have exterminated most of the wild things around here.

At the same time, we see these long-tailed macaques as very human-like: the babies are cute, the mothers take good care of them; the young males respect the older males, the older males look wise and are very macho.

This may be the world as we would like it to be.

But it is time for Phana to re-think its relationship with the monkeys here. The Governor of Amnat Charoen Province has suggested (with a little prodding, perhaps) that some sort of ‘Centre’ should be established in connection with them. Selling souvenirs may have been the extent of his thinking on the subject. Several people have put forward the idea of an educational facility, a Study Centre, and contact has been made with Thai academics who are interested in the study of primates and their place in the ecosystem (see the page ‘Macaque Project‘). First, though, we must decide exactly what sort of relationship we want to have with the monkeys, and what sort of habitat we are willing to allow them.

COMMENTS and SUGGESTIONS would be very much appreciated.

This blog is concerned solely with the monkey forest in Phana, so it seems sensible to include those three posts on this site. The first was about feeding the monkeys and the pleasure it gives me to be with them.

Feeding the monkeys in Don Chao Poo forest, Phana, can be a very rewarding experience. But it can sometimes be an alarming experience. Sometimes the monkeys are calm and patient; sometimes they are greedy and aggressive. Sometimes we are calm, too, and sometimes we panic too easily and monkeys and humans become frightened.

One of the things that causes lots of people to panic is when a monkey starts to pull at your clothing, or to climb up it. But as you see here, there is no need to panic.

But at times when they are particularly hungry perhaps, there will be a scramble to get food from visitors. But this does not always happen. If you have plenty of food to give, and especially if you can scatter it on the ground, it is much less likely to cause aggressive behaviour amongst the monkeys. And sudden, mock-aggressive movements by you, such as swinging the bag towards the invasive monkey, will make them keep their distance.

Human panic is one of the reasons that plastic bags get strewn about; someone less confident than this monk might allow a monkey to snatch the bag and run off into the forest with it. More often, though, it is humans who dispose of the bags they bring by throwing them down when empty. As I have mentioned in a previous post, the few bins there are in the forest are useless because the monkeys pull out all the litter and scatter it about.

But you don’t have to feed the monkeys to enjoy being with them. Early in the morning, round about mid-day and in the middle of the afternoon seem to be times when the monkeys are relaxed, not particularly searching for food, and you can walk and stand and even sit among them and enjoy a peaceful time with them. You can watch them at different times playing, grooming, mating, or just sitting quietly.

Here are some pictures I took on a Sunday afternoon at a sala next to the pond in the forest.

The monkeys were happy to share the place with me, but there was no doubt in their mind that the tetsaban had provided the place primarily for their leisure.