Nuisance Behaviors of Macaques in Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park, Palawan, Philippines
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Journal of Threatened Taxa Building evidence for conservaton globally www.threatenedtaxa.org ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print) Communication Nuisance behaviors of macaques in Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park, Palawan, Philippines Lief Erikson Gamalo, Joselito Baril, Judeline Dimalibot, Augusto Asis, Brian Anas, Nevong Puna & Vachel Gay Paller 26 February 2019 | Vol. 11 | No. 3 | Pages: 13287–13294 DOI: 10.11609/jot.4702.11.3.13287-13294 For Focus, Scope, Aims, Policies, and Guidelines visit htps://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/about/editorialPolicies#custom-0 For Artcle Submission Guidelines, visit htps://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions For Policies against Scientfc Misconduct, visit htps://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/about/editorialPolicies#custom-2 For reprints, contact <[email protected]> The opinions expressed by the authors do not refect the views of the Journal of Threatened Taxa, Wildlife Informaton Liaison Development Society, Zoo Outreach Organizaton, or any of the partners. 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Partner Member Threatened Taxa Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 February 2019 | 11(3): 13287–13294 Nuisance behaviors of macaques in Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park, Palawan, Philippines Communication Lief Erikson Gamalo 1 , Joselito Baril 2 , Judeline Dimalibot 3 , Augusto Asis 4 , ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) Brian Anas 5 , Nevong Puna 6 & Vachel Gay Paller 7 ISSN 0974-7893 (Print) PLATINUM 1 Department of Biological Sciences and Environmental Studies, University of the Philippines Mindanao, Mintal, OPEN ACCESS Tugbok District, Davao City 8022, Philippines. 1,2,3,7 Animal Biology Division, Insttute of Biological Sciences, University of the Philippines Los Baños, Los Baños 4031, Laguna, Philippines. 4,5,6 Puerto Princesa Subterranean River Natonal Park Management Ofce Puerto Princesa City 5300, Palawan, Philippines. 1 [email protected] (corresponding author), 2 [email protected], 3 [email protected], 4 [email protected], 5 [email protected], 6 [email protected], 7 [email protected] Abstract: Diferent nuisance behaviors of macaques have been reported in diferent parts of the world where humans and macaques have been living in the same habitats and sharing the same resources. In this study, nuisance behaviors of Long-tailed Macaques were documented in Puerto Princesa Subterranean River Natonal Park using direct observaton, survey questonnaire and by visitng the complaint secton database. The attudes and practces of the locals towards the macaques were also investgated. From the result of the study, it was observed that the most common nuisance behavior of macaques in Central Park Staton was litering, while according to the locals, eatng of crops was the most common nuisance behavior. There was no existng tourist complaint about the macaques in the area, however, park personnel reported that aggressive tourist-macaque encounters sometmes happened. These nuisance behaviors were observed to be linked to food security of the animals which results in negatve interacton. Meanwhile, it was also observed that the practces of most people towards macaques in the area are stll relatvely positve despite the nuisance behaviors of the macaques. Only a small percentage of respondents hunted macaques, experienced keeping macaques as pets or experienced eatng macaque meat. The direct observatons revealed that the degree of human-macaque interacton in the park was relatvely mild compared to the reports in other countries, partly because of the positve human attudes towards the animals and the efectve management practces in the area. Keywords: Human-macaque interacton, nuisance behaviors. DOI: htps://doi.org/10.11609/jot.4702.11.3.13287-13294 Editor: Mewa Singh, University of Mysore, Mysuru, India. Date of publicaton: 26 February 2019 (online & print) Manuscript details: #4702 | Received 13 November 2018 | Final received 25 December 2018 | Finally accepted 05 February 2019 Citaton: Gamalo, L.E., J. Baril, J. Dimalibot, A. Asis, B. Anas, N. Puna & V.G. Paller (2019). Nuisance behaviors of macaques in Puerto Princesa Subterranean River Natonal Park, Palawan, Philippines. Journal of Threatened Taxa 11(3): 13287–13294; htps://doi.org/10.11609/jot.4702.11.3.13287-13294 Copyright: © Gamalo et al. 2019. Creatve Commons Atributon 4.0 Internatonal License. JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproducton, and distributon of this artcle in any medium by adequate credit to the author(s) and the source of publicaton. Funding: Department of Science and Technology- Science Educaton Insttute- Accelerated Science and Technology Human Resource Development Program (DOST- SEI-ASTHRDP) scholarships and research grants. Competng interests: The authors declare no competng interests. Author Details: see end of this artcle. Author Contributon: Lief Erikson Gamalo, Joselito Baril, Judeline Dimalibot and Vachel Gay Paller partcipated in the study design and wrote the paper. Lief Erikson Gamalo, Augusto Asis, Nevong Puna and Brian Anas conducted the feldwork. Acknowledgements: We would like to thank the Protected Area Management Board (PAMB) of PPSRNP for letng us conduct the study in a protected area (Resoluton No.: 11-2017) and with the help of community organizers of the park. We would also like to acknowledge the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development (Permit No.: 2017-07) and the Biodiversity Management Bureau (Permit No.: 266) for giving the permission to conduct the study. We are grateful to the Research Ethics Board of the University of the Philippines Manila (Study protocol code: UPMREB 2017-513-01). We are also grateful to the partcipants who truthfully answered the questonnaire. We are also thankful to the Department of Science and Technology-Accelerated Science and Technology Human Resource Development Program (DOST-ASTHRDP) for the research grants and scholarship. 13287 Nuisance behavior of macaques in Palawan Gamalo et al. INTRODUCTION the most common nuisance behaviors brought by Long- tailed Macaques to park personnel, local community Human-wildlife confict (hereafer referred to as and to tourists. The study also aimed to know the local interacton) is one of the greatest challenges for the peoples’ practces and attudes towards macaques in conservaton of biodiversity (Madden & McQuinn 2014). the area. In monkeys, the genus Macaca has been reported to have high interactons with humans which increases the encounters and ofen results in problems (Hsu et al. METHODS 2009). Such human-macaque interactons have been reported from many habitat countries where macaques Study site are sympatric with humans. Puerto Princesa Subterranean River Natonal Park is Macaques near humans exhibit diferent nuisance a UNESCO World Heritage Park (10.1920N & 118.9260E), behaviors. In agricultural areas, macaques are reported which spans 210km2 of mosaic of dipterocarp, molave, to raid crops in Sulawesi (Riley 2007) and in Kuala karst, and montane forests (Mallari et al. 2011). In the Selangor (Hambali et al. 2012). Although crop raiding park, Long-tailed Macaques are numerously present in could also have been done by diferent wildlife species, the central park staton, tourist area of the Underground macaques could be more conspicuous because they River and in areas near human setlements. are diurnal animals (Riley 2007). Additonally, the large number of macaques during crop raiding makes them Direct observaton more obvious compared to other animals as shown in Direct observaton of the nuisance behaviors was the study by Hill (1997) on baboons. done from August to September 2017 for 15 non- Although macaques sometmes atract large numbers consecutve days in the Central Park Staton (CPS) of visitors, diferent nuisance behaviors are also present where macaques and some park personnel reside in tourist areas. In Singapore, the degree of human (Fig. 1). Contnuous all-occurrences sampling on and Long-tailed Macaque interacton in tourist sites is nuisance behaviors was done as there were only very higher compared to the urban areas (Sha et al. 2009). few occurrences of these measured behaviors (Lehner This is because of the food provided by the tourists to 1992). The tme of observaton was 06:00h to 17:00h, macaques which could also result in direct aggression totaling 165h of observaton. towards the tourists (Orams 2002). Bitng tourists by Barbary Macaques was observed to be very frequent in Survey questonnaire Upper Rock Nature Reserve, Gibraltar (Fa 1992). The questonnaire was designed to know the peoples’ Long-tailed Macaque is the only monkey in the encounters with the macaques and the nuisance Philippines and is widely distributed in the country. behaviors shown by the animals toward the local people. There are two subspecies of Long-tailed Macaques in Furthermore, the peoples’