Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
There is a variation in the frequencies of conflict-related behavior across
the study sites. This might be affected by factors such as the distance from
the student residences to the forest fringe and college cafeteria and also how
effective the garbage collecting schedule and residence cleaning process are.
Table 4.3
also shows the comparison of
X
2
values across the study sites indi-
cating statistical differences occurred among the nuisance activities caused by
the long-tailed macaques.
Student perceptions and attitudes
One-hundred percent of the students said that they can identify what a long-
tailed macaques is based on morphological characters. Most respondents said
that the species has a long tail with fur on their body, move in a large group
and are smaller than pig-tailed macaque. Only 24.1 percent said they could
differentiate between male and female macaques. Most of them gave the same
answers saying that male is larger than the female, and some differentiated the
sexes through observation of the genitals.
In this study, 88.6 percent of the respondents reported having a negative atti-
tude and dislike for the presence of
M. fascicularis
. The reasons included that
long-tailed macaques generated messes in their residence corridor and many
reported being afraid of the macaques. 95.2 percent of respondents agreed that
long-tailed macaques had made their residence halls dirty. Furthermore, 63.4
percent agreed that these macaques are dangerous to the safety and health
of the college's residents. However, 11.4 percent of respondents reported
having no problem with the macaques presence. Meanwhile, 60.8 percent of
respondents reported that at some time they had been disturbed and/or chased
by the long-tailed macaques. Most students (75.2 percent) agreed garbage
cans in the hostel are inefficiently allocated and a proper place to dump rub-
bish is needed. Only 14.5 percent of respondents admitted to directly feeding
the macaques. Bread and left-over food waste were examples of food given
to macaques.
In this survey, most respondents had seen or experienced long-tailed
macaques entering into rooms. In addition, 96.7 percent of the respondents
said the macaques entered rooms through windows, while others (3.3 percent)
said they entered through the door. Nearly half reported that that their rooms
were messed up by macaques (51.5 percent) while 16.4 percent of respondents
claimed the monkeys had taken items, particularly food, from their rooms. In
addition, students claimed that macaques had taken down their hung-up laun-
dry and that their vehicles had been scratched by macaques. Despite the numer-
ous nuisances faced by the residents from macaques, only 10.1 percent of them
