Dr Nancy Priston

Since my last update I’ve been spending time with the monkeys. I went out last week to the village of Kawelli to find the troop of monkeys that suffered from the poisoning.

This troop of monkeys which consisted of 25 individuals originally, lives in a forest-farm mosaic near the village. Their home range consists of few small forest refuges, overgrown farms and active farms and plantations. Over the 12 years I’ve studied them the forest refuges have got smaller and the farms more plentiful. The monkeys still need to eat though so as a result they’ve become more and more reliant on crops to sustain them. Farmers in this area rely almost totally on their farms for food. Farms are small (usually under a hectare) and are planted with a mix of crops – fruit and vegetables such as maize, sweet potato, banana, papaya etc. A few months ago one of the farmers got fed up with the monkeys stealing all his bananas so he bought some poison and laid put poisoned bananas for them. 19 members of the troop were killed leaving only 2 adult males and 4 adult females. One of the adult males is pretty old and in lieu of the dominant male of the troop the young male has started to take on that role. As a result he’s bulked up and has become more aggressive as he asserts his authority over the other 5 monkeys.

Since the poisoning the monkeys have become slightly warier but they still rid farms an we’re still able to follow them and study their behaviour. We’ve seen lots of mating and at least 2 of the females look to be pregnant so there’s hope for this little troop yet. They’ve also come in to contact with a neighbouring troop. So far it’s mostly involved lots of shouting and scrapping but there’s a chance they may join that troop.

I’m hoping to have a good chat with he farmer involved soon to understand a bit more about what pushed him over the edge this time and led to him poisoning them (the poison is incredibly expensive so it wasn’t a decision taken lightly). Watch this space for more updates!

Young male showing off

Old male