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Population, behavior and conservation status of the northern pig-tailed macaque (Macaca leonina) in the Inner-line reserve forest, Assam, India

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Abstract

The Northern pig-tailed macaque is listed as Endangered in India and vulnerable globally. In this study, we assessed the status and behavioral activities of Northern pig-tailed macaque (Macaca leonina) in the Inner Line Reserve Forest (ILRF). Population study was conducted through complete count method. A total of 29 individuals were found in three separate troops. We studied the activity profile of the species following a focal female individual of a selected troop and have obtained information on the anthropogenic threats and other conservation issues in the forest. Eight behavioral activities (viz., feeding, resting, locomotion, playing, grooming, vocalization, agonistic and mating) were recorded both in the summer and winter seasons. The activity budgets of the Northern pig-tailed macaque varied with the seasons and most of the times were spent on locomotion followed by feeding, resting, playing, vocalization and other three behavioral activities. During winter, over three-fourth of the time was spent on four major activities such as locomotion (31.7%), feeding (25.1%), resting (14.3%), and vocalization (9.7%). Although, time spent on locomotion (25.0%) was also highest in summer, however, time spent in resting (24.6%) and playing (15.6%) increased in the season than the time spent in feeding (15.0%). Potential threats were identified through questionnaire surveys of the people inhabited in and around forest. Multistage sampling method was used to select the villages at first and then respondents from the selected villages. One-fourth of the respondents constitute 159 of the total 637 household and additional 51 respondents comprising elder person, hunter and forest staff. As per peoples’ perceptions, the main threats faced by the macaque were timber logging (44.90%), followed by cultivation (30.96%), harvesting of non-timber forest product (8.88%), hunting (6.34%), illegal trade/poaching (5.83%) and forest fire (3.04%). A proper conservation action plan is needed for the species that should ideally include providing alternative livelihoods to the forest villagers to reduce peoples’ impact on the forest.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all the respondents for their immense contribution to the successful completion of the work. The authors are thankful to Dr. Nilam Basumatary and Dr. Mofidul Islam for proving the vegetation map of the study area. The authors are also grateful to the Editor and the four anonymous reviewers for their feedbacks and insightful suggestions to improve the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wildlife Conservation Research Laboratory, Department of Ecology and Environmental Science, Assam University, Silchar, India

    Biswajit Singh, Anisur Rahman, Nazimur Rahman Talukdar & Parthankar Choudhury

  2. Centre for Biodiversity and Climate Change Research, Udhayan, Hailakandi, Assam, India

    Nazimur Rahman Talukdar & Parthankar Choudhury

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  1. Biswajit Singh
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Singh, B., Rahman, A., Talukdar, N.R. et al. Population, behavior and conservation status of the northern pig-tailed macaque (Macaca leonina) in the Inner-line reserve forest, Assam, India. Trop Ecol 64, 287–295 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42965-022-00276-4

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