Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
and use of sling shots. At most of the local tourist areas/religious sites/
cemeteries, we observed people feeding the monkeys. However, we never
observed, nor did we hear reports of, monkeys displaying aggressive
behavior (i.e., grabbing, biting, scratching, etc.) toward people.
Throughout the survey, a striking observation was the vast area where
there were no reports of monkey sightings by the local people, suggesting
a possible patchy distribution of long-tailed macaques in Java. We cov-
ered long stretches that included agricultural areas as well as areas with
adequate forest habitat, where the local people were consistent in their
responses of “no monkeys in the area.” The fact that long-tailed macaque
populations are often located in areas of human habitation, where sight-
ings and conflict occur daily, may lead to assumptions of over-abundance
in regions where actual population size may be much smaller then per-
ceived. As such, we believe efforts should be made to conduct thorough
population surveys of the long-tailed macaques throughout their range in
Indonesia. Our preliminary survey, reported here, is just the first step in an
ongoing effort to confirm the locations of long-tailed macaque presence
thereby helping to “fill-in-the-blanks” regarding their distribution as we
move ahead with plans to conduct an island-wide population survey of the
long-tailed macaque on Java.
References
Ong, P. and Richardson, M. (2008).
Macaca fascicularis
. In: IUCN 2009. IUCN
Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2009.2. www.iucnredlist.org. Last
accessed on 18 January 2010.
Acknowledgements
We thank Erik McArthur and Christine Howard for their expert assist-
ance with the map design and GIS graphics. This study was supported in
part by NIH Grant RR-00166.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank all interviewees for their kind responses to our sur-
vey. Our special thanks go to the reverend of Bayin Nyi Naung Mountain,
“Bat-dan-ta Pyin-nyar-won-tha” and the forest staff of the Wildlife
Sanctuaries for their permission to do this research. This study was sup-
ported by the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (nos. 16405017
and 20255006.
