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  • From: Andrew Hund <axh69 AT po.cwru.edu>
  • To: monkeywire <monkeywire AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [monkeywire] Monkey death on the rock
  • Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2003 14:40:36 -0500

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/dispatch/story/0,12978,1083247,00.html
Monkey death on the rock

Thursday November 13, 2003
The Guardian

A top primatologist has pulled out of field research in Gibraltar, in protest at the culling of a group of Barbary macaques that had been part of a long-term conservation study.

Robert Martin, vice-president of the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History, also boycotted an international macaque conference held last week in Gibraltar - even though he was one of its organisers. "The culling without warning of half of our study group has effectively terminated our research project. There is no point in continuing," says Martin.

The couple of hundred semi-wild Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus) that populate the Rock of Gibraltar are the only non-human primates living outside captivity in Europe. The population provides an ideal model for ecologists studying the genetic effects of habitat fragmentation - a key question in primate ecology and conservation biology.

Eight years ago, Martin, then at the University of Zürich, began monitoring reproduction and genetic variability in a 50-strong macaque colony on Gibraltar's Middle Hill. The study was meant to provide guidelines for the conservation management of threatened wild macaque populations in Algeria and Morocco.

But in July, half of the macques in Martin's study group were killed after some were found vandalising property and attacking children. "There was a public health risk, so we had no choice," says Mark Pizarro, a surgeon at Gibraltar's veterinary clinic.

Martin says the monkeys would not have outgrown their habitat if the government had not ignored timely scientific advice. "I submitted as early as 1997 detailed proposals on effective population control by means of contraception, but nothing much was done," he says.
The Gibraltar Ornithological and Natural History Society, which recently took over management of the colony, tried to prevent a cull. "There was too much public pressure on the government to take action," says John Cortes, general secretary of the society, whose intervention persuaded the government not to have the entire group killed.

Nature supplies the news content for this page, but the Guardian has sole editorial responsibility for this supplement as a whole.




  • [monkeywire] Monkey death on the rock, Andrew Hund, 11/13/2003

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