Among the most common experiences in the country, when on a pilgrimage or a trip through the forests and hills, is the sight of rhesus macaque opportunistically lined up for a treat or two from passing tourists.
Videos abound of these clever primates stealing picnic snacks or scurrying around for food thrown by visitors. However, a study on primate-man interaction shows that this “benign act” by tourists is increasingly affecting the ecology of the region.
Researchers from the School of Natural Sciences and Engineering, National Institute of Advanced Studies in Bengaluru studied the effects of provisioning food to the rhesus macaques on the forests of Buxa Tiger Reserve (BTR) in West Bengal.
In a previous study at the same reserve, Asmita Sengupta, Kim R. McConkey, and Sindhu Radhakrishna from the institute had observed the effects of seed dispersal due to a troop of rhesus macaques. Nearly 50 per cent of the seeds handled by these primates had germinated
