A Comparison of Body Size, Coat Condition and Endoparasite Diversity of Wild Barbary Macaques Exposed to Tourism
As different communities around the world strive to find ways to preserve and protect threatened species, some are turning to tourism as a means of bringing in revenue to be used towards conservation efforts. However, tourism still has an impact on the environment and animals. This study from Morocco looks at how exposure to tourists is affecting the body size, coat color, and the amount of parasites found in local Barbary macaques, evaluating each group based on different levels of tourist exposure.
Over recent years, primate tourism has emerged as a “growing industry and one that has the potential to make a significant contribution to the conservation of primate species.” However, tourism is not without its impacts. It has been noted that “primates fed by tourists have been reported anecdotally as being obese,” because “feeding by tourists may affect a primate’s normal physiology as anthropogenic, high-carbohydrate diets can decrease their activity and increase fat deposition.” In addition to this more obvious and observable change, primates in close proximity to tourists may also experience a change in coat quality, as well as increased exposure to a wider range of parasites. In Morocco, primate tourism is a “relatively new phenomenon,” and the authors of this study sought to evaluate its effect on three different groups of primates in Ifrane National Park, located at various distances from tourist hotspots. Using digital photogrammetry as their primary technique for evaluating size, they employed a standardized method for photographing, identifying and measuring animals. Researchers applied a 3-step coat condition scoring scale, as well as analyzing fecal samples taken from every macaque they studied. These metrics were taken at different times, to evaluate any changes that may have occurred through the course of the study.
As might have been expected, the findings revealed that Barbary macaques located closer to groups of tourists were experiencing a range of impacts. “For both sexes, tourist group animals had wider hips and deeper stomachs-relative to back length-than animals in the other two groups.” And “furthermore, provisioned food is usually more abundant than wild food and is also more clumped, reducing animals’ foraging distances and leading to a more sedentary lifestyle.” However, even though it would be tempting to quickly associate increased weight and body size with a macaque obesity problem, the researchers caution that they were unable to link the increased weight and size with negative health outcomes. In fact they noted that for macaques living closer to tourists, the additional weight may be beneficial: “as tourist exposure is associated with increased reproductive output in other macaque populations, [increased body size] may be associated with weight gains that are actually beneficial to reproductive fitness.” Furthermore, though the study found that poorer coat color and parasite richness also correlated to tourist proximity, they were unable to establish a link between those factors and any negative health outcomes. Yet they note that their findings are compelling enough that more work should be conducted to make firmer conclusions possible.
The authors note that, even though there is an intuitive, anecdotal knowledge of the impact of tourism on wild animal populations, there is a dearth of literature looking at the types of metrics explored here. Their assertion is that “it is crucial next to assess whether the differences in body size, coat condition, and endoparasite species diversity that we identified between study groups are meaningful in the context of the conservation of this species.” Establishing if these factors significantly affect the health of the macaques is important. Once this takes place there can be a more thorough analysis of whether or not tourist programs are worthwhile: “even if [negative health] effects were demonstrated, they would have to be weighed against the potential positive benefits of tourism at this site, including increased habitat protection, and increased protection from poaching.”
Original Abstract:
Primate tourism is a rapidly growing industry with the potential to provide considerable conservation benefits. However, assessing the impact of tourists on the animals involved is vital to ensure that the conservation value of primate tourism is maximized. In this study, we compared body size, coat condition, and endoparasite diversity of wild, adult Barbary macaques exposed to different levels of tourism. Study animals belonged to three groups located in the Middle Atlas Mountains, Morocco: “green group” (GG) and “scarlet group” (SG) were exposed to negligible/no tourism, while the “tourist group” (TG) was exposed to very high levels of tourism. We used photogrammetry to quantify body size, scored coat condition from photographs, and quantified endoparasite species number from fecal samples. For both males and females, TG animals had deeper stomachs and wider hips than SG and GG animals. The coat condition of TG males was worse than that of SG and GG males, but no difference between groups was seen for females. Fecal samples from TG males contained a greater mean number of protozoan species than did samples from SG and GG males; for females a similar difference was found between TG and GG, but not between TG and SG. This study provides evidence that tourism has impacts on the body size, coat condition, and endoparasite diversity of Barbary macaques at this site. Further study is required to assess whether such effects are detrimental to the health of these animals.