An ethnoprimatological approach of the human-macaque interactions at the Ubud Monkey Forest, Bali (Indonesia)

Macaque tourism, i.e. a tourist activity focusing on wild macaques as main attraction, is an example of the bourgeoning and diversified human-macaque interactions in Southeast Asia. Although both people and macaques can benefit from their interactions at tourist sites, this activity also raises several conservation and management issues which are essential to understand in order to promote a sustainable coexistence. Using an ethnoprimatological approach, we provide here an assessment of the effect of a long-term management regime at the very popular tourist Ubud Monkey Forest in Bali, Indonesia. Over a four-month period in 2013, we characterized the visitor-macaque interactions with ethological methods and we compared our data with those collected 12 years earlier by Fuentes and colleagues. In parallel, we conducted a questionnaire survey, interviewing 99 Balinese people to assess their attitudes towards macaques and the Monkey Forest. Our results confirmed that the management efforts to reduce the aggressiveness of macaques towards visitors have been effective. Indeed, we observed a considerable reduction of the frequency and intensity of agonistic interspecies interactions. However, the interactions between macaques and visitors frequently involved close physical contact, such as during provisioning. Men on the human side, and adult or subadult males on the macaque side, were the groups the most frequently involved in these types of interaction. A reinforcement of the management practices limiting close interspecies contact interactions by targeting the most exposed groups, is therefore necessary in order to reduce the risk of pathogen cross-species transmission. Our questionnaire survey revealed globally a high level of tolerance of local people towards macaques in Ubud. These positive attitudes were determined by the economic and cultural benefits derived from the macaque presence and tourism activity, as far as they compensate for the nuisances caused by macaques. Crop raiding in cultivated fields surrounding the Monkey Forest was still a source of tension which would require further management efforts including the development of open buffer zones.