Preliminary results on the behavioural ecology of a long-tailed macaque (Macaca fascicularis) population in a disturbed urban habitat, Bangkok, Thailand

In many tropical regions of the world, humans and nonhuman primates share habitats, and their interactions are increasingly common. As a result, human presence has an important impact on the demography, behaviour, and overall ecology of the nonhuman primates’ populations. More specifically, the increasing human pressure represents a critical danger for the survival of most primate species, often leading to the local extinction of entire populations. However, some primate species show a high degree of plasticity when facing human disturbance, and even adapt their ecological behaviour to heavily modified urban areas. Our research project, in collaboration with the City of Bangkok, focuses on long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis), a species distributed throughout all Southeast Asia, and showing a great ability to adapt to urban habitat. The goal of our study is to define the impact of urbanized habitat fragments on the social interaction and reproductive patterns of the macaque populations, in order to design sustainable management plans and reduce conflicts with local human populations. We present preliminary results from a 4 month study period (May to August 2007) on a large semi-provisioned troop living in the South of Bangkok suburban area. Data were collected via instantaneous scan sampling for activity budget, and focal sampling for diet, while aggressive and sexual interactions within the group were noted ad libitum. The study group, 128 animals (10 males, 6 subadults, 48 females of whom 39 with an infant, and 64 juveniles) appears to use an area highly disturbed by of human activities. In the coming year we plan to extend our observations to a second troop inhabiting an estimated area of 5 km2 of pristine mangrove with an ongoing forest regeneration project.