The Location

Once again, Emma and I made a brief stop-off at a new and exciting location. On this occasion while making the big trip from NZ to the UK, we touched down in Kathmandu, Nepal.

Although we met numerous kind and welcoming people, tried an array of scrummy food items, and visited many sacred and historic sites as we could, we still felt the need to meet some of the other (somewhat furry) locals. For this experience we headed out with a old friend of Emma’s and some new Nepali friends to the top of Swayambhunath. This is an ancient stupa (a dome-shaped building erected as a Buddhist shrine) atop a hill in the Kathmandu Valley, west of Kathmandu city.

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The Problem

Not long after climbing the first set of steps, a macaque took a sudden disliking to a group of teenagers.

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This interaction highlights one of the issues that arise when people live in close quarters with and have historically fed the wildlife. These monkeys are very intelligent, seemingly knowing which individuals to harass in the hopes they will drop food.  With the surrounding trees protected by religious beliefs the monkeys have found a little island amongst a sea of overloaded dusty streets and colourful towering buildings. We also witnessed the macaques eating scraps and playing with rubbish.

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Dr Mukesh Kumar Chalise, an associate professor of Zoology at Tribhuvan University, has been following these monkeys since 1991 and has found that their numbers remain between 425-450 individuals at Swayambhunath. He also explains that their high numbers for such a small 2.5 hectares site (which under normal conditions would only support 40-50 individuals) is due to human food scraps. He warns of the perils of  ‘wildlife provisioning’, the “offering of food to a non-human animal, beyond its natural supply and the quality of the animal’s environment.” If you would like to know more about these issues you can read more here and here.

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The Solution

Don’t feed the monkeys…!

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Temple Tyrants

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Watching these urbanised monkeys going about their daily lives atop the hill and on and around the temple was quite a fascinating experience. For both Emma and I, our take home feeling was how seemingly well they have adapted to an ever increasingly unusual environment.

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They navigated the electrical wires, fences and buildings no differently than their ancestors would have on the vines, branches and trees that would have historically been in the area.

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A Few Facts about the Rhesus Macaque (Macaca mulatta)

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• They are one of the best-known species of Old World monkeys (Cercopithecidae)
• Cercopithecidae are a family of monkeys found in Africa and Asia (New World monkeys are from Central and South America as well as Mexico)
• Rhesus Macaques have the widest geographic range of any nonhuman primate
• They occupy a large range of altitudes and habitats
• Their average lifespan in the wild is 4 years
• They live in active, noisy troops that can include up to 200 animals
• Rhesus macaques communicate with a variety of facial expressions, vocalisations, body postures, and gestures
• They have demonstrated a suite of complex cognitive abilities and even self-agency
• They are mostly herbivorous, feeding mainly on fruit, but many also eat seeds, roots, buds, bark, cereals, insects and small animals

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One Final Treat

Just before heading off the hill, we noticed one very obliging female macaque.

After taking her photograph she looked down.

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That’s when we realised she was hiding something.

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Now, look at that face. Totally beyond cute.

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References and Further Reading

IUCN Red List – Rhesus Macaque – http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/12554/0
(Retrieved 13 May, 2018)

The Kathmandu Post, The all-unnatural diet – http://kathmandupost.ekantipur.com/news/2017-03-11/the-all-unnatural-diet.html
(Retrieved 13 May, 2018)

Luminism Blog – https://luminism.wordpress.com/2016/05/12/the-effect-of-wildlife-provisioning-on-primates/
(Retrieved 13 May, 2018)

National Geographic – Rhesus Macaque – https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/r/rhesus-macaque/
(Retrieved 13 May, 2018)

Wikipedia website, Swayambhunath – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swayambhunath
(Retrieved 13 May, 2018)