Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
temporarily housed here until traded to dealers. On the basis of our data on
the wild population, which indicated that long-tailed macaques were restricted
to the southern region of Laos, the source of the macaques in these farms
was unlikely to be Laos. Rather, they were likely to be from Thailand and/or
Cambodia. According to animal caretakers, long-tailed macaque populations
inhabiting Buddhist temples and City Parks in Thailand that were sometimes
in very large numbers (> 1,000; Malaivijitnond
et al
.,
2005
; Malaivijitnond
and Hamada, 2008) were caught (most probably illegally, as the Thai gov-
ernment bans hunting and exportation of primates) and sold at $50-80 USD
each. We have also heard that in a Buddhist Temple in the Nakhon Sawan
Province of Thailand, where more than 1,000 monkeys were counted, that on
some days hunters came and caught several hundred monkeys, and brought
them to Vientiane by truck. Knowing this, the chief monk and residents chased
the truck and confiscated monkeys. It is possible that such illegal hunting and
smuggling of long-tailed macaques could be occurring in other places as well.
Animal caretakers even reported that macaques from Cambodia were
mainly wild-caught, and thus not habituated, and were healthier than those
from Thailand, meaning that considerable numbers of macaques died in trans-
portation or while living at the farm. Residents in southern Laos (<15˚N) along
NR-13 reported that they tried to catch long-tailed macaques but had little suc-
cess. According to the animal caretaker, after recovering from transport and
reception to the farm, the macaques were tested with drugs (e.g., insulin of ten
times the treatment dose), and the survivors were sent to Ho Chi Minh City or
Hong Kong. They would then be sent to developed countries (such as Japan,
USA and Europe) and sold for bio-medical experiments or for drug testing for
$1,000 USD or more each.
Threats to long-tailed macaques in Laos
The population of long-tailed macaques in Laos is potentially under the threat of
extinction for several reasons. The major cause of concern is human population
growth, which had ca. 2.3 percent annual growth rate in 2005 (http://globalis.
gvu.unu.edu). Furthermore, economic development had an annual increase
of 5 percent GDP in 2008 (www.globalpropertyguide.com/Asia/Laos/gdp-
per-capita-growth.1-year), and will need to continue exploiting natural
resources to maintain growth. Some examples of development include, dams
for hydraulic power were constructed in the Bolaven Plateau (i.e., tributary
of Xe Khong River) to inundate wide areas of riverine forests, and agricul-
tural farm lands are being widely developed in low altitudinal forests near
rivers. Particularly, large-scale farmland for the production of commercial
