Fw: (ID) primfocus: WWF - trying to coerce Indonesian government to allow monkey killings

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Monkeys Threaten New Guinea's Wildlife

Greedy Macaques Have Bad Reputation Among Locals

 

By Timothy Mapes, Wall Street Journal Staff Writer

Wall Street Journal

2 October 2001

 

Jayapura, Indonesia. Yopi Muskita has spent the past seven years studying

monkeys and their ways. Now he is ready to go to war.

 

" If we don't kill them now, they can become very dangerous to our

native species, " says Mr. Yopi, a 42-year-old researcher for the

World Wild Fund for Nature, as he walks along the edge of a tangled

rain forest in search of a particularly aggressive monkey troop.

 

New Guinea, the largest tropical island on Earth, is one of the

least-explored

and least-understood wilderness regions in the world. Divided between the

Indonesian province of Irian Jaya and the independent nation of Papua

New Guinea in the South Pacific Ocean, it is home to an astonishingly

diverse collection of flora and fauna: Kangaroos that live in trees, mammals

that lay eggs, the world's tallest trees, its largest butterflies, its

longest

lizards - the list goes on. Butt the monkeys, daring and ravenous, are

new arrivals. Environmentalists worry that local wildlife that evolved for

millions of years without having to worry about them could be quickly

wiped out by a monkey onslaught.

 

New Guinea's latest arrivals are commonly known as crab-eating macaques,

or Macaca fascicularis in Latin. But in fact they will eat most anything

they

can get their hands on. Ferocious competitors, they spend up to 90% of

their waking hours foraging for fruit - thus stealing food from a host of

new Guinea's native species. The crab-eaters also find the eggs of New

Guinea's rare birds and reptiles especially tasty. Some biologists

fear they pose a major threat to the endangered Birds of Paradise -

small to midsize forest birds whose brilliantly colored plumes and tall

feathers have dazzled European fashion designers for centuries.

 

The Bubonic Plague'

 

" The critters are the bubonic plague of invasive primates, " say David

Quammen, who has written a book showing how the same monkeys helped

wipe out the flightless Dodo bird from the Indian Ocean Island of Mauritius

after being introduced by Dutch sailors in the 17th century. Mr. Quammen

says the crab-eaters are one of a number of " weedy " animals - including

rats, cockroaches, pigeons and, of course, humans - that are highly

mobile and can thrive in a wide range of environments. As they spread,

overwhelmingly local species that aren't able to keep pace, the Earth

will be transformed into " the Planet of Weeds, " he predicts.

 

No one really knows how the monkeys got here. Some say Allied troops

brought them in when they drove out the Japanese at the end of World

War II, using them to taste local fruits and plants before they were

served to the men. A more plausible scenario is that they were ferried

here as pets by the thousands of Indonesians who moved to this region

after Jakarta seized it from the Dutch in the early 1960s, and then escaped

to build their own communities in the jungles.

 

It also isn't clear exactly how many of the monkeys are roaming the forests

of New Guinea. The WWF says at least six troops of between 20 and

30 each have been identified on the fringes of the forests near human

settlements on the Indonesian side of the border. Scientists haven't

ventured further into the jungle to see if the monkeys are spreading

out of view, however.

 

No Alternative

 

Mr. Yopi, a native of Indonesia's famed Spice Islands, spent years living

in the forests of Sulawesi gathering monkey blood for studies on how

the primates transmit diseases. The stocky, curly haired researcher

soon developed relationships with his studies, who recognized him as

long as he didn't alter his appearance from day to day. He has little

enthusiasm for plans to shoot the macaques or hunt them down with

dogs, but fears there is no alternative.

 

Some local residents have developed a soft spot for the primates,

distinguished by the pads on their bottoms that make it easier to sit

in trees for long stretches, and hope the monkeys' lives can be

spared. That is the government's wish, too. Mackbon, the local

government's point man on the topic (and who goes by the one

name), suggests that trapping the monkeys and selling them to medical

laboratories could help raise badly needed cash: crab-eaters are

among the most widely used monkeys in research experiments.

" I've heard that the price of these monkeys is quite good, especially

in overseas markets, " he says.

 

Ethical qualms aside, most environmentalists believe it would be nearly

impossible to wipe out the highly intelligent and agile monkeys using

traps alone, " With trapping, if you miss a few, they escape deeper into

the forest, and you've got an even more intractable problem than

before, " says John Burke Burnett, executive director of the Indo

Pacific Conservation Alliance, who calls the monkeys and " ecosystem

cancer " that will just reappear elsewhere unless it is eliminated now.

 

Little Evidence So Far

 

Agustinus Yumame, a lean, 32-year-old bean farmer, knows just how

difficult snaring these monkeys will be. Every day, armed with a 2

foot machete, he patrols his bean fields, which sit on the edge of a

dense monkey forest of tall trees and creepers. Raids of 20 of more

monkeys are becoming increasingly common, and sophisticated, he

says. " Sometimes when they attack they leave a guard up in the tree.

He keeps watch and then calls out when a human comes along and

they all run away, " he says.

 

To be sure, scientists don't yet have much evidence that the monkeys

have learned native wildlife. While several studies have illustrated a drop

in numbers of Birds of Paradise and other species, no serious examination

has been done on the role the monkeys have played in that decline.

 

Yet there is ample evidence from around the world that monkeys and

other so-called invasive species can be just as dangerous as better-known

threats to New Guinea's environment, like logging or mining or population

growth.

 

While damage from mining, for example, can be cleaned up over time,

invasive species tend to stay forever and can alter the ecological

balance in irreversible ways.

 

Look at Hawaii

 

Hawaii offers a classic example: The state accounts for about a quarter

of all of the endangered species in the U.S., as pigs, goats, coconut palms

and strawberry guava plants introduced by humans push aside the unique

plant and animal life that developed there over thousands of years.

 

In fact, monkeys aren't New Guinea's only invaders. The Climbing

Perch, a fresh-water fish, can survive several days out of water using

a special chamber above the gills to breath air, and can wriggle

long distances along the ground using its fins and gills. When larger local

fish try to eat it, the resourceful perch extends sharp spines, often

killing its would-be predator.

 

But for New Guinea's monkeys, time may be running out. The WWF

plans to hold a meeting of government officials, scientists, and

environmental

groups here this month to devise a joint strategy for eliminating them

from the forests, one way or another.

 

" One feels sorry for the monkeys - it wasn't their fault. But they're just

in the wrong place, " Mr. Burnett says. " It's either the monkeys or the

New Guinea fauna. Macaca fascicularis is doing just fine in many

other places, but New Guinea species? They've got no places else

to go. "