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Description
The conflict that results from crop raiding may have negative repercussions for human livelihoods, as well as the nonhuman primates (hereafter, primates) involved. Conflict is exacerbated by increasing anthropogenic habitat alteration. An understanding of human-macaque conflict is useful for informing conservation efforts that allow both humans and primates access to the resources they require to survive. Drawing from the ethnoprimatological framework, I employed a mixed-methods research approach to collect data from both 'perspectives' of the conflict; the human and primate perspectives. Research was conducted at the edge of the Education Forest (EF) and agricultural areas in the town of Bengo, South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Specifically, I investigated the link between moor macaque (Macaca maura) food availability and patterns of crop raiding behavior by examining forest habitat composition and structure, and analyzing the relationship between forest fruit availability and the timing and frequency of crop raiding behavior. I established vegetation plots for habitat analysis, utilized remote sensor cameras to gain insight into patterns of raiding timing and frequency, and conducted interviews with farmers to determine their perceptions of raiding behavior. I found that despite levels of human disturbance the EF offers suitable quality habitat for macaques because of the presence of diverse and abundant food resources. There was no significant relationship between forest fruit availability and crop raiding frequencies, although raiding frequency peaked in December when forest food was the most scarce. These results suggest that other factors such as guarding and crop availability are more likely predictors of raiding patterns. Farmers with gardens near the forest expressed hatred toward raiding macaques but exercised considerable tolerance in their behavior toward them. Human-primate interactions vary greatly depending on the context in which they occur. Overall, the conflict resulting from crop raiding at this location does not seem to pose an immediate conservation concern for this population of endangered macaques. My findings suggest that anthropogenically altered forest need not always be lower quality habitat for primates, crop raiding by macaques is not solely linked to temporal patterns of forest fruit availability, and crop raiding may be best studied using multiple techniques to triangulate results.
