Qualitative Assessment of Macaque Tourist Sites in

Authors: Agustín Fuentes Eric Shaw John Cortes

Publish Date: 2007/09/27

Volume: 28, Issue: 5, Pages: 1143-1158

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Abstract

Human tourists share space with touch feed and otherwise interact with Macaca at multiple locations Across Asia and stretching to Gibraltar and Northern Africa macaques form a substantial tourist attraction as their ranges become increasingly coincident with human use zones Residing in or as tourist attractions macaques frequently generate economic benefits to local humans and compete with them for habitat and specific resources In addition health conflicts may emerge from increased overlap and interactions between humans and macaques There is only a handful of studies on the impact structure context and cultural ecology of macaque tourist sites We provide a general overview of 2 macaque tourist sites one in Padangtegal Bali Indonesia and one in Gibraltar Qualitative assessment reveals variability in behavioral ecological economic and politically relevant facets of macaque tourism Specifically differences in aggression during interactions potential health dangers economic factors and local human perceptions between Padangtegal and Gibraltar suggest that qualitative assessments can assist in our construction of broader models and conceptualizations of the interaction contextWe thank the management and staff of the Padangtegal Wenara Wana especially Pak Selamet the Center for Primate Studies and University Udayana Bali Indonesia Dr A L T Rompis and the staff of the UNUDPKP the GONHS staff especially Dale Lageua and Damien Holmes and the participants of the Bali Macaque Project and Gibraltar research teams The University of Notre Dame Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts and the Office of the Dean of the College of Arts and Letters partially supported the research Funding for work at Padangtegal came in part from the Central Washington University Office of International Programs and Primate Conservation Inc We also thank Dr QiKun Zhao and 1 anonymous reviewer for insightful commentary on earlier versions of the manuscript

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