Abstract
Primate tourism is a growing trend in habitat countries, but few assessments of its impact on primate groups are available. We compare infant mortality in a group of Tibetan macaques (Macaca thibetana) 6 yr before the government translocated the group and subsequently used them for tourism (1986–91), 12 yr during management for tourism (1992–2002, 2004), and 1 yr when management was temporarily suspended (2003). We also compare aggression rates among adults before and during management, and test several hypotheses about specific factors (numbers of tourists, degree of range restriction, demographic changes, changes in α-males) that may have harmed infants. Infant mortality was significantly higher during management than before, but it was similar before management vs. during its suspension. After management began, serious attacks on infants occurred shortly before they died, and many infant corpses had bite wounds. Typically, infants sustained wounds after aggression broke out among adults in the provisioning area used for tourist viewing. Adult aggression rates in the provisioning area correlated positively with infant mortality over time. Range restriction accounted for 54.5% of the variation in infant mortality, and was more closely associated with both mortality and aggression than any other specific factor examined. We hypothesize that range restriction led to increased infant mortality by raising aggression levels in the provisioning area. We conclude that infant mortality is useful as an indicator of the impact of tourism on primate groups, and that range restriction is an inappropriate tourism management practice.
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Acknowledgments
We thank the Huangshan Monkey Management Center and the Huangshan Garden Forest Bureau for permission to carry out research at Mt. Huangshan. We received financial support from the Leakey Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the National Geographic Society, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Key Teacher Program of the Ministry of Education of China, the Excellent Youth Foundation of Anhui, the Mark Diamond Foundation, and the Naroll Research Fund. We profited from the advice of Q-S. Wang, K. Wada, and C-P. Xiong. We thank May Lee Gong, Krista Jones, Stephan Menu, Stephanie Pieddesaux, Justin Sloan, and Lei Zhang for field assistance. We are grateful to Lei Zhang and Akie Yanagi for translating Chinese and Japanese works into English. Finally, we express special thanks to Xinming Chen and his family for taking us into their home and making us feel so welcome in China.
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Berman, C.M., Li, J., Ogawa, H. et al. Primate Tourism, Range Restriction, and Infant Risk Among Macaca thibetana at Mt. Huangshan, China. Int J Primatol 28, 1123–1141 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10764-007-9199-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10764-007-9199-4