In Malaysia, many of their cities have monkeys interacting with urban areas. Some individuals label monkeys as ‘pests’, due to their behavior. There has be an increase of complaints of urban monkeys, this causes management strategies to mainly reduce human populations that impact animals welfare/conservation. This study aims to see how human activity influences the ecological activity’s of the long-tailed macaque.

Methods

The research took place in Bukit Melawati and Kuala Selangor, which are both known to be a popular tourism site. The study site was divide into 3 zones, these zones included high/medium/low traffic sites. These sites were determined by interviews with residents and determined by team observations.

The research used instantaneous scan sampling for behavior sampling. LTM were observed daily from 9:00 to 17:00, individuals were recorded at specific time points at varying intervals (3 -11 minutes long). A total of 1761 scans were conducted across all time points. Behaviors were categorized into aggression, self-grooming, feeding natural, feeding unnatural, inactive, affiliative interaction, sexual, and travel. Researcher also recorded the type of structures the LTM occupied.

The research analyzed the data by bootstrapping, using a generalized linear model, and a percentage calculation.

Figure 1 – Study area

Results

From the results it was found that the LTM were observed to be traveling, inactive, interacting with other monkeys, and feeding naturally in 94% of the scans (figure 2). Of all of the unnatural feeding, only 10/6% were by humans. Out of all of the inactive LTMS, 54% were alert inactive.

Figure 2. – Activity of LTM

Observations were mostly during the early morning, followed by early evenings, late evenings, late morning, and afternoon. But these results are not a true representation of LTM present but the amount of time observed. Figure 3A shows the activity budget proportions of LTM

Figure 3 – Activity budget based on time of day, zone, weather, and presence of humans

Based on figure 3B, it showed that most LTM were observed in medium traffic areas. LTM had more time feeding in low traffic zones compared to the rest. Which can lead to to how human presence having an effect on the LTM. In figure 3D, it showed that LTM fed 9.9% of time in the presence of humans compared to 12.8% of the time.

Conclusions.

From the study it showed that LTM can be highly adaptive as they alter their behavior to survive in urban areas. The study also showed that human presence influences LTM behavior, as seen from figure 3. They potentially see humans as threat, due to their feeding being higher when they are not in the presence of humans. This study can help future conservation efforts with LTM.

Study Limitation

I believe one major study limitation of this study was not considering age/sex categories. I believe if this study used that kind of category it would of be very useful. It could possibly show variation of the LTM.

Another study limitation from the research is that it was too short. The study I believed should of been much longer. The study was over a 4 month long period, which doesn’t seem like a lot of time to study behavioral changes of a species.

Entezami, M., Mustaqqim, F., Morris, E., Lim, E. S. H., Prada, J. M., & Paramasivam, S. J. (2024). Effect of human activity and presence on the behavior of long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) in an urban tourism site in Kuala Selangor, Malaysia. Animals, 14(8), 1173. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani14081173