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Study: Tourism raises baby monkey deaths

Infant mortality rate jumps to 55 percent after primates became attraction

By Melinda Wenner
LiveScience
Updated: 3:10 p.m. CT July 23, 2007

Primate tourism may be fun for the visitors, but it's no party for the 
monkeys.

A 19-year study of Tibetan Macaques in a scenic area in eastern China
reveals that these "monkeys on display" became very aggressive towards
each other and put their young at a heightened risk of death from
accidental injury. This is most likely in response to the increase in
human contact, reduction in habitat size and worry over food rations,
according to new anthropological research.

Primate tourism has gained popularity over the years in China, Africa
and Central America, because it offers communities a way to make extra
cash and is thought to help protect local wildlife.

But Carol Berman, of the State University of New York in Buffalo, and
her colleagues in China and Japan wondered whether the practice might
be more detrimental to the animals than people realize.

"Most research has gone into examining the educational and financial
benefits, but comparatively little has focused on the benefits or
harmful effects to the wildlife itself," Berman told LiveScience.

So, starting in 1986, Berman and her colleagues began tracking the
behavior of a group of Tibetan Macaques in the Mt. Huangshan Scenic
Area in China's Anhui province.

The monkeys initially roamed freely over an area of about eight square
kilometers and then, in 1992, people started using the region for
tourism. The monkeys were managed to facilitate tourism until 2002,
when tourism was suspended for about a year, during which time the
animals were allowed to roam free again.

When they were used for tourism, the monkeys were relocated to an area
next to their natural habitat that varied in size from one to three
square kilometers over the years. They were provided with food in a
specific location and were in contact with a number of humans — both
staff and tourists.

These changes didn't sit well with the primates, Berman found. As soon
as they were relocated, the monkeys began fighting more, and the
aggression tended to get worse as their range grew smaller. When they
were allowed to roam free again in 2002, however, the excess fighting
abated.

By far the biggest blow was to the monkeys' young, Berman said. The
primate infant mortality rate jumped from about 15 percent prior to
1992, to nearly 55 percent after the monkeys became tourist
attractions.

Berman speculates that the infants died due to fights over food, which
often broke out among the adult monkeys in the feeding area. The
fighters would move into the woods to do the dirty work, and "mothers
would appear a bit later with wounded or dead infants," she said. "We
are guessing that the infants were innocent bystanders in these
disputes over food."

Primate tourism comes with other risks, too. Monkeys and human
tourists can catch diseases from each other, noted Berman, whose study
will be published in the October issue of the International Journal of
Primatology. And visitors are also at risk of being attacked by the
frustrated primates.

"These monkeys are strong, quick and have huge canines," Berman said.
"The chances of being attacked are particularly great for the public,
because tourists often behave in ways that provoke aggression,
sometimes deliberately through teasing or inadvertently by making eye
contact or offering food."

Berman next hopes to study which aspects of primate tourism — range
restriction, herding, human contact or limited access to food — are
the most stressful for the monkeys, and whether all primates are as
sensitive to these conditions as Tibetan Macaques.
(c) 2007 LiveScience.com. All rights reserved.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19917887/