Ubud Monkey Forest
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The
monkeys
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Although
the monkey population is ever changing, in 2011, a study revealed that 605 crab-eating
macaques (Macaca fascicularis) – 39 adult males, 38 male sub-adults, 194
adult females, 243 juveniles, and 91 infants – were living in the Ubud Monkey
Forest; locally, they are known as the Balinese long-tailed monkey. The park staff
feed the monkeys sweet potato three times a day, providing them with their main
source of food in the park, although bananas are for sale in the park for tourists
wishing to feed the monkeys, and the monkeys also feed on papaya leaf, corn, cucumber,
coconut, and other local fruit. For the sake of the monkey's health, visitors
are prohibited from feeding them snacks such as peanuts, cookies, biscuits, and
bread. There are
five groups of monkeys in the park, each occupying different territories; one
group inhabits the area in front of the Main Temple, another in the park's Michelin
area, a third in the park's eastern area, and a fourth within the park's central
area, while the fifth group lives in the cremation and cemetery area. In recent
years, the monkey population has become larger than an environment undisturbed
by humans could support; it continues to grow, with the population density in
2016 higher than ever. Conflicts between the groups are unavoidable; for example,
groups must pass through one another's territory to reach the stream during the
dry season, and increasing population pressures are also bringing the groups into
more frequent contact. The
monkeys rest at night and are most active during the day, which brings them into
constant contact with humans visiting during the park's opening hours. Visitors
can observe their daily activities – mating, fighting, grooming, and caring for
their young – at close range, and can even sit next to monkeys along the park's
paths. The Ubud
monkeys have completely lost their fear of humans. Generally, they will not approach
humans who they believe are not offering food but they do invariably approach
human visitors in groups and grab any bags containing food that people have. They
may also grab plastic bottles and bags not containing food, as well as reach into
visitors' bags and trouser pockets in search of food, and will climb onto visitors
to reach food being held in a visitor's hand, even if the food is held above a
visitor's head. The visitor will notice the interesting phenomenon of numerous
obese monkeys, a testament to the almost limitless food supply the huge number
of tourists entering the forest provide. The
park staff advise visitors never to pull back an offer of food to a monkey or
to touch a monkey, as either action can prompt an aggressive response by the animal.
Although they generally ignore humans who they believe do not have food, they
sometimes mistake a human's actions as an offer of food or an attempt to hide
food. If a human does not provide the food the monkeys demand or does not provide
it quickly enough, the monkeys will occasionally bite the human; in fact, monkeys
bite tourists daily and videos of many of these attacks can be found on YouTube.
Monkey bites are a very serious medical event given the variety of viruses monkeys
carry that can be transferred to humans. For example, Herpes B virus, which frequently
causes death in humans, is prevalent in crab-eating macaques, and should be assumed
to be prevalent in the monkey populations in the Ubud Monkey Forest. Park
personnel carry slingshots with which to intimidate aggressive monkeys and intervene
quickly in confrontations between monkeys and humans. Given the monkey's apparently
increasing aggressiveness toward humans and the risk their bites pose to human
health, Balinese politicians have called for a cull of crab-eating macaques in
Bali although authorities have not yet formally accepted these calls. Dogs,
which otherwise might intimidate the monkeys, are not allowed within the Ubud
Monkey Forest.
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Map of Ubud Monkey Forest :.
Ubud Monkey Forest | map
Ubud Monkey Forest
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