Economic behaviour in vervet monkeys

Prof. dr. E.E.C. van Damme en Prof. dr. Noë

Results 2005

For the moment, the project had some impact on the way people now see the monkeys. The manager teams for Loskop and the M’pumalanga parks in general were very sceptical about the project and the vervets. Vervets and baboons are seen as pests in South Africa and are really abused. We gave regular talks to the manager teams as well as some associations involved in conservation and education. We showed some videos with complex behaviours and explanations of the primates societies. The impact was quite incredible actually as people now really start to see the monkeys as interesting and complex creatures and teach it in the local schools.

We also have a very general problem with the tourists feeding the monkeys in the picnic areas. This often leads to the shouting of the monkey groups as soon as some children get bitten. We are organising some boards in order to give an ID of all the members of the groups as well as the description of the most common behaviours and the current scientific projects. We hope the tourists will be more interested in the monkeys and their natural behaviours than in feeding them.