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Recent controversy has arisen following declarations by the Government that it was planning the cull of 25 monkeys from the east side of Gibraltar.

The Gibraltar Ornithological & Natural History Society (GONHS) was engaged in 1999 to manage aspects of the Gibraltar population of Macaques.  Other work was contracted at that time to the Gibraltar Veterinary Clinic.  In addition to this work, GONHS carries out and co-ordinates extensive research into macaque ecology, behaviour and genetics, working with eminent scientists from many institutions, including the University of Notre Dame in the USA, the University of Vienna and the German Primate Centre.  This work has been published extensively in prominent, peer-reviewed journals, and in 2006 in a book on the Barbary macaque was published by Nottingham University Press and carrying detailed articles on their biology.

GONHS is an independent non-governmental organisation dedicated to the study and conservation of the natural history of Gibraltar and its region, and has an excellent track record in its scientific, educational, and conservation work.

The Society is in regular contact with the Government of Gibraltar’s Department of the Environment and with the Gibraltar Veterinary Clinic on relevant aspects of the management of the macaques.  Its policy is one of working together with the Department in order to ensure the best management practices are carried out, in both the short and long term.

In this respect, and depending on the issue, GONHS may either agree or disagree with the Department, as is the natural and proper situation in an open and professional relationship between two independent entities working together.

GONHS has been encouraged by the increased concern in recent years among officials for the situation of the Barbary macaques of Gibraltar, especially when the responsibilities for their management were passed from Tourism to Environment, an action it had been campaigning for over many years.  In some other areas, including the implementation of the Upper Rock Management Plan, which contained recommendations on macaque management, progress has been disappointingly slow.  These have been the subject of correspondence and discussion and continue to be so.

The management of a population of wild animals is extremely complex.  When these come into close contact with humans, the complexity is magnified.  The GONHS macaque team is a small, tight unit of extremely experienced professionals who fulfil duties far beyond the requirements of any contract.  The team not only provisions the monkeys and cleans the sites, but also keeps an extensive database on the monkeys, including birth and other demographic details, biometrics, relationships, etc.  They receive extensive and continuous on-the-job training as they work with some of the world’s most prominent primatologists and anthropologists.

GONHS advice to Government, on culling and on all other matters, is based on a huge base of data, experience and consultation with any expert who might be able to provide additional knowledge or opinion.  This generates well-researched advice drawing on science.  GONHS completely refutes any allegation or implication to the contrary by anyone.

The Society is well aware of the endangered status of the Barbary macaque.  As is well known, GONHS works regularly in north Africa and has close contacts with experts in Morocco and Tunisia.  The Society continues to work towards finding possible destinations for splinter groups both there and in reputable parks with suitable facilities.  For many reasons finding such placements is extremely difficult.  GONHS will never recommend exportation to any facility with inadequate means or space, nor the use of our monkeys in invasive research. 

GONHS is not in favour of culling.  It recognises that the putting down, under licence, of selected animals is necessary as a part of management where a situation is not totally natural.  There will be reasons of health, social status or behaviour that may make this necessary.  In this way, the processes of natural mortality are assumed by the managers of the population.

The culling of groups of animals is a separate issue.  Most of the problems caused to humans and their dwellings arise as a result of splinter groups from the established packs chancing on sources of rich, concentrated food.  The roaming that causes these groups to wander away from the Upper Rock are natural, and occur in the wild in north Africa over far greater distances.  They are NOT the result of under-feeding.

There is abundant evidence for this.  Gibraltar’s macaques are provisioned with an equivalent of 500 grams of fresh fruit and vegetables per animal per day as well as with grain and other seeds.  These quantities were established after consultation with experts.  Two undercover investigations into our practices were carried out recently by Government officials who established – as confirmed publicly by the then Minister for the Environment, the Hon Jaime Netto, that the quality of the food provided was excellent and the quantities more than sufficient.  An international conference held in Gibraltar in 2003 which brought together all the world’s major experts on the species, concluded that there is no need to provision Gibraltar’s monkeys, as there is abundant natural food anyway.  This has been confirmed by further scientific studies since then.  In some groups, natural food (leaves, berries, roots and bulbs, etc.) forms 80% of their diet, and these groups, which spend more time foraging, tend to move away from the Upper Rock less than those that eat more provisioned food.

However, the macaques will naturally prefer high calorie food if this is offered or encountered.  When a group of monkeys, roaming naturally, encounters such food, be it in a rubbish dump, or as offered by tourists in a site with restaurants, or outside a hotel, they will continue to return to the site as long as the food is available.  Removal of this food source may solve the problem, as it did in the Calpe area two years ago.  GONHS has managed to convince Government that it would be an important step to ensure that all rubbish enclosures in Gibraltar are monkey proof.  Hotels, restaurants, etc. should be given incentives to make theirs safe also.

The health of the monkeys of Gibraltar is monitored continuously by the Gibraltar Veterinary Clinic assisted by visiting experts, who have found our macaques more disease free than any other similar population studied.  Their condition is good, and therefore they are breeding successfully.  Despite this, we have been successful, by various means, in maintaining the population stable at around 200, lower than the population in the 1990s when there were between 250 and 300 animals.  However, it is likely that, precisely in view of the good health and good care they receive, numbers can increase in the future, leading to further splinter groups.  This is an issue that needs to be tackled.

Contraception is only part of the answer, and has in fact been carried out in Gibraltar by the Veterinary clinic.   If the concern against culling is that an endangered species’ numbers should not be reduced, then this is an argument also against contraception.  Contraception in this species is complicated, as the females need to raise young in order to attain and maintain a social status.  It would also be necessary to regularly capture a large proportion of females. 

The ideal way to deal with the growing population is to remove the surplus animals within splinter groups, provided this is genetically sustainable.  Ideally, these would be removed to other facilities or to the wild, if such places were available.

GONHS will advise as to the likelihood of a group established in a built-up area moving away and will try to achieve this, often working on this even while residents or visitors are deliberately providing food.  There is no doubt that monkeys which become urbanised are a nuisance, which some people will tolerate more than others.  This has led to a division within the community between those who want monkeys culled and those who do not.  A decision to cull will be a political one, which will consider all available advice and weigh up the negative factors of such action, against the perceived nuisance value.  Once such a decision is taken, and if a cull is to proceed, GONHS feels that it is best done by professionals under veterinary supervision, rather than by any other operator.  This will ensure that humane methods are used and that the animals are selected carefully, as in fact has been the case since it has been involved.

However, one very important point, which many refuse to recognise, is that the monkeys are being trained by members of the public to become aggressive and accost people in built-up areas.  The monkeys, a mere 206 in number, are visited by about three quarters of a million visitors who enter the Upper Rock every year.  Many of these visitors are encouraged to touch or otherwise interact with the monkeys in ways that the monkeys can consider to be threats.  In addition, the monkeys are taught by a minority of operators to expect food from people, often from plastic bags, or even pockets.  Sometimes these food items are unhealthy in themselves, but the monkeys quickly learn anyway to expect food from people and plastic bags.    They are also taught to do tricks – and lose their fear of or respect for humans.  When a splinter group encounters a built-up area, the monkeys will be pre-conditioned to expect food and will not hesitate in approaching shoppers, or children on their way to school, expecting the same food items.  If they are taught to enter car windows in return for food, why would they not expect to get the same when they enter someone’s kitchen window?  So Gibraltar is training monkeys to become pests.

A group of Gibraltar monkeys sent to a monkey park in Germany in 1998 where feeding is strictly prohibited, quickly learnt not to expect food and will never approach human visitors who walk freely among them.

Despite these facts, there is no enforcement of the laws forbidding feeding.  There have never been any prosecutions, despite photographic evidence having been made available by GONHS to the authorities.

GONHS would welcome improvements to the monkey sites on the Upper Rock, which are overdue.   However, this would be largely cosmetic and would not have a significant effect on the problem described here.  It would be much more important to ensure that illegal feeding stops.  Any wardening or other presence at the ape sites would be aimed primarily at stopping these practices.  Some years ago GONHS volunteers undertook these tasks, but withdrew, after threats and physical abuse were received.

The Barbary macaques are an important asset to Gibraltar.  They are also a part of our ecology to be treasured and a healthy population of a species that is endangered elsewhere.  Their care is not neglected but would benefit from public understanding of the complexities involved, a little more patience, and the stopping, immediately, of the illegal feeding of monkeys on the Upper Rock and their treatment by some almost as if they were pets or circus animals.

The attention of the international media, and of international organisations, should best be aimed in those directions, and in assisting us in our endeavours to find destinations for surplus groups.

Despite, or even because of all of the above, in future years culls should not even be contemplated until all their potential feeding sites such as bin stores are made monkey-proof, and there is full and proper enforcement of the law forbidding the feeding of monkeys, in the Upper Rock and elsewhere.

21st April 2008

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