A Breakaway Colony of Long-Tailed Macaques in Phana

On the Phana ring-road there is a small colony of long-tailed macaque monkeys. It isn't clear how they got there, several kms from Don Chao Poo forest. One explanation is that when a truck-load of monkeys was stolen from the forest and some of them were rescued by the police, they were left here. I am not sure how credible that is, seeing that the forest is nearby, and the police were local and knew exactly where the monkeys had come from. You can read about this HERE.  A breakaway colony seems more likely. Certainly they would not have been imported here by the farmer who now has them as neighbours.

I have been cycling past the spot where this colony lives for some time now. The large vinyl poster on the left was for some time the only way I had of knowing there were monkeys here. They are very shy, unlike the ones in Don Chao Poo.  One morning, about a week after this became my preferred route, there were 15 of them lined up along the bridge as if they were waiting for me to sail past. It was as if a meeting had been called so that they could all see the farang. They just watched me, didn't ask for anything, didn't ask me where I was going or where I came from. Nice.

 

I've never seen that many since then, usually just two or three of them playing in the trees, or sitting by the roadside.

 

There are two reasons why they are so shy. The first is because of the large vinyl notice. There are two of these, one either side of the road, either side of the bridge.

The notice tells people NOT TO FEED the monkeys here.

 

 

The second reason is this: I found it next to the farmer's field hut. A bag of stones, all about the same size. Pretty deadly, I imagine, when fired from a catapault. The farmer naturally does not want his crops eaten or destroyed by marauding monkeys.

 

And I am fairly sure that the monkeys learn quite quickly that the farmer won't hesitate to fire at them. In the same way, they seem to have learnt that people are not going to feed them, even if they stop at the bridge as I sometimes do.

So we have two colonies of long-tailed macaques in Phana. The large colony lives in a forest and receives much of its food from the tetsaban and from passing tourists. That is what they have come to expect. And that is what they have come to depend on. In some cases it is what they have come to demand and to fight over.

The other, smaller, colony is living a much more natural life. It fears human contact and so avoids it. It finds food in the trees, water in the small river that flows under the bridge. On the other hand, the monkeys do range in search of food, and no doubt they are a nuisance to nearby farmers, who can't always be on guard to defend their crops.

Two colonies; two solutions. In tomorrow's post I'll consider the two solutions alongside each other and try to weigh the pros and cons of each.

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Martyn]

It's hard to weigh up which colony of monkeys has the better life. One has food on tap but human interference whilst the others have to fend for themselves and avoid upsetting the local farmers. Even-Steven really.

Is it possible the large colony drove away the smaller one.

[Lawrence]

Nail on the head, Martyn. But in large numbers the monkeys can't fend for themselves AND avoid upsetting farmers. In fact farmers and wild animals just don't get along. Wolves in Europe? Bears in Spain? Tigers in India. (I hate to say it, but maybe even foxes in England.) It's the same old story.