Macaque See, Macaque Do 



At tourist sites in Bali, hwnans are teaching their fellow primates some bad habits 

 by Meredith F. Small 



Early last July, I boarded a plane for a 

 thirty-six-hour journey to Bali, the tropical 

 island vacation spot. Contrary to what 

 most of my friends thought, this eight- 

 week trip to hidonesia was not really in- 

 tended as a hohday of sun, surf, and shop- 

 ping — my assignment was to evaluate the 

 effect of tourism on the native Balinese 

 monkey, the long-tailed macaque. 



My last research project on monkey be- 

 havior had taken place five years earlier, 

 and I felt a surge of excitement when I 

 reached my primary research site, the 

 Sangeh Monkey Forest in the center of 

 Bali. As I walked down a winding cement 

 path through a lovely patch of nutmeg for- 

 est to Sangeh 's central temple, Pura Bukit 

 Sari, I suddenly saw them, scampering 

 among the tourists, leaping over temple 

 walls, and generally acting like mon- 

 keys — curious, social, and full of energy. 



Watching them, I felt the old observa- 

 tion skills chck back into gear: That one 

 with a bent tail wiU be easy to identify 

 again. The female over there is in heat. 

 Two babies are less than three months old. 

 I see at least four young infants. This 

 group has few subadult males. 



Lost in this primatological reverie, I 

 failed to see an adult female approaching 

 to my left. Suddenly she streaked past me, 

 a blur of green-gray fur so close I could 

 smell the familiar monkey odor. In mid- 

 leap, her tiny fingers gripped the earpiece 

 of my brand-new sunglasses. She uncere- 

 moniously yanked them off my face and 

 sped into the forest. 



I was stunned. The swiftness of her cal- 

 culated thievery was breathtaking. (More 

 important, how could I spend day after day 

 recording the minute details of monkey 

 behavior without a decent pair of shades?) 

 Accompanied by a temple guard, I tracked 

 my assailant deep into the woods. She fi- 

 nally stopped running, only to sit and 

 chew contemplatively on my glasses, her 

 brown eyes shifting back and forth be- 

 tween her pursuers. The guard tossed her a 



Aiticle adapted from "The Monkey Bandits of Bali," by Meredith F, Small. 

 Repiimcd h)j arrangement widi ComeU Magazine, 



few bags of peanuts. Needing both hands 

 to collect this booty, she dropped the 

 glasses in favor of something more di- 

 gestible and sped away. 



"You must not wear glasses near the 

 monkeys," instructed the guard. "They 

 also steal wallets, money, hair ribbons, and 

 handkerchiefs. And don't try to hide any- 

 thing in your pockets, because they will 

 find it." His description sounded more ap- 

 plicable to big-city pickpockets than to 

 monkeys on their home turf. As I returned 

 to the main area, I noticed tourists holding 

 on to their possessions for dear life, and 

 monkeys clearly poised for thievery. Ani- 

 mals stood up on two legs and yanked on 

 clothes. They jumped on people, pulled 

 hair, and rifled pockets. These normally 

 gentle and friendly animals had turned 

 into beggars and thieves. Something had 

 gone terribly wrong at Sangeh. 



As my study progressed, I reaUzed that 

 I had been a victim of a monkey mugging 

 only because the monkeys were victims 

 themselves. Bad management of a tourist 

 site, coupled with uneducated visitors with 

 no appreciation of macaques as fellow pri- 

 mates, had resulted in a twisted relation- 

 ship between the visitors and the very ani- 

 mals they had come to see. 



All monkeys have a special place in 

 Hindu religion. This reverence stems 

 partly from the role of the monkey god, 

 Hanuman, in the classic Hindu epic Ra- 

 mayana. According to the story, Prince 

 Rama's beloved wife, Sita, was kidnapped 

 by the evil giant King Rawana. The mon- 

 key king, Sugriva, had once aided Prince 

 Rama, so Sugriva's general, Hanuman, 

 was enlisted to gather an army, wreak 

 havoc, and rescue the princess. 



Sangeh itself also features importantly 

 in the Balinese version of the Ramayana 

 story. Clever Hanuman and his monkey 

 battalions capture Mount Mahameru and 

 use the two halves of the holy mountain to 

 crush the giant. Part of the mountain falls 

 to earth and lands at Sangeh with a troop 

 of monkeys hanging tight. 



Monkeys thus retain the status of privi- 



leged visitors, especially on temple 

 grounds, where they are treated with great 

 tolerance. Like aU living objects, monkeys 

 also embody the spirits of Hindu gods, 

 both good and evil. When a monkey leaps 

 onto a temple altar, destroying carefully 

 placed palm baskets of sacred offerings 

 and gorging on the fruit and rice intended 

 for higher powers, the Balinese ignore the 

 vandalism — after aU, a spirit might now 

 reside in that monkey and might need the 

 food. 



Macaques are highly adaptable mon- 

 keys that live in deep forests, on high 

 mountains, or along the seaside. About 

 five million years ago, the genus Macaca, 

 of which longtails are one of nineteen spe- 

 cies, radiated out of North Africa into Eu- 

 rope and east into Asia. Macaques now in- 

 habit Morocco and Algeria, India, 

 Pakistan, China, most of Southeast Asia, 

 and Japan; and long-tailed macaques 

 {Macaca fascicularis) have lived on Bah 

 longer than humans. Although they eat 

 just about anything, they prefer fruits and 

 vegetables. In a sense, they are the cock- 

 roaches of the primate world, able to adapt 

 well to changes, move into new environ- 

 ments, and scrounge when food gets 

 scarce. 



Their humanhke sociality makes these 

 monkeys tourist attractions. We aren't as 

 genetically related to macaqueS as we are 

 to the apes, such as chimpanzees, but we 

 see ourselves in their behavior — the con- 

 stant social interactions, the jostling for hi- 

 erarchical position, the bickering and 

 making up are all similar to the daily 

 machinations of human society. This con- 

 nection between humans and the 

 macaques either fascinates or repels 

 tourists, and I saw both types of visitors in 

 Bali. 



During my weeks at Sangeh, I watched 

 monkeys eat 409 peanuts, 67 bits of bread, 

 49 chunks of fruit, and endless quantities 

 of crackers, cookies, and candy. I saw 

 them chew on cigarettes, suck on match- 

 sticks, rip apart film boxes, and play with 

 discarded plastic bags. Feeding the ani- 



8 Natural History 3/94 



