T2W8

Nic and Nat (BT)

- 4.40pm:

• 2 monkeys seen at drain area
• none at usual locations (carpark, big bin, outside houses)
• around 40 people present
• big bin removed and area very clean!

- 4.50pm: 5 monkeys seen, around 40 people at site

- 5pm: 9 macaques seen, around 50 people

- 5.05pm: 22 macaques observed

- 5.15pm:

• 25 monkeys seen (walking along roads, near drains)
• still none at usual sites
• around 30 people seen

Macaque behaviour

• eating banana peels (from bins? from members of the public?)
• eating leaves
• climbing on cars/lorries
• searching through human belongings (on the lorry)
• walking in the middle of roads [very slowly] (disregarding any passing vehicles)
• sitting and grooming each other in the middle of roads
• drinking from cans
• rummaging through open bins

Human behaviour

• squat down to observe monkeys very closely (< 50cm away)
• children shouting at monkeys
• drive slowly and give way to the macaques along the road
• boy and father: put empty cans of drinks near macaques to see if they take them, happy and satisfied after seeing the macaques take their cans ( D: )

Tiff and Ying (WELL) OUR FIRST TIME SEEING MONKEYS HERE HOHOHO.

9.05am (We were told by one of the sweepers that monkeys are usually seen in the morning)- Arrived at the lab. Around 20+ people. 0 monkeys observed.

9.40am- >30 people. 0 monkeys observed in areas near the lab.

9.50am- 8 monkeys (a whole colony!) spotted on trees towards the end of the Wallace Trail. They were not found near the lab and exhibition center at all. The monkeys are not at all aggressive and just stayed on the trees. We were the only ones in the area (very little human interaction)

I''ll show you guys the video tomorrow cos the vid refuses to be uploaded. And we took a super cool video of termites (cos we kinda got carried away heheh) so we'll show it to you guys too.

Macaque behaviour:

• Monkeys were very agile and could climb along very thin vines and branches to find food
• Eating flowers and leaves from the trees they were sitting on
• Monkey communicated using grunting and wheezing noises, and the other monkeys hidden in the trees answered back with similar noises
• When monkeys noticed people staring/watching them, they ran up the branches/further into the trees - scared
• When I walked closer to one of the monkeys, it ran away

Baby and Mother monkey

• Mother carrying its baby around protectively while moving through the trees
• Baby monkey clinging on to its mother
• Made high pitched noises

Human behaviour:

• A jogger saw the monkeys and just continued with no reaction
• Little girl with her family noticed the monkeys and was shouting in excitement, wanted to take a picture of the monkeys