In the Western Ghats and Sri Lanka biodiversity hotspot, the last of the Endangered lion-tailed macaques (Macaca silenus)—about 4,000 of them in total—reside. Habitat fragmentation is one of the primary threats to the species, which is endemic to the region. In and around Anamalai Tiger Reserve in India, that fragmentation has resulted in road mortalities as the monkeys attempt to cross from one part of the reserve to another.

In 2011, the Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF) received a CEPF grant to help efforts to stem the car-related mortalities. For this month’s “Year of the Monkey” blog post, we caught up P. Jeganathan from NCF to learn about the project and continued efforts to protect the macaques. 

Question: Why are the macaques susceptible to road mortality in this area?

Answer: Within the Anamalai Hills we mainly work in the Valparai Plateau. Historical habitat fragmentation, along with agricultural land-use conversion and urbanisation, has often restricted wildlife to small remnants of natural habitat in a land-use mosaic, frequently near human settlements. 

Arboreal primates in this landscape face conservation problems such as population isolation, habitat disturbance and canopy disruption from logging and roads, and encounters with traffic that lead to roadkill mortality.  

Q: How did your CEPF-funded project help address the issue of road mortality?

A: On the main highway to Valparai (in Puthuthottam rainforest fragment), two full-time watchers are employed to regulate (i.e., slow down) the traffic and inform and educate tourists and prevent the feeding of monkeys.

Between 2011 and 2013, we installed seven canopy bridges (five of them with support from CEPF) in two rainforest fragments at locations where lion-tailed macaques were known to frequently cross and where natural tree canopy connectivity was absent or low. These bridges are now used regularly by lion-tailed macaques. 

We have been working with two main local stakeholders, Tamil Nadu Highways Department and Tamil Nadu Forest Department, to continuously sensitize staff to the importance of speed bumps. We identified several locations—about 25—along the Aziyar-Valparai main road where we recorded several mortalities of wild animals. Based on our collaborative effort, about 12 speed bumps were installed at the foothills in March 2013 (later five of them were removed for various reasons) and in March 2016 seven were installed in the Puthuthottam fragment region, which holds one of the major populations of lion-tailed macaques.

CEPF-funded work helped us in our ongoing rainforest restoration program. These efforts were carried out along with the help of local government and private partners (i.e., tea plantation companies).

lion-tailed-macaque-on-road.jpg

Caption: 

A lion-tailed macaque crosses a windy road in Anamalai Hills.

Credit: 

By P. Jeganathan (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0​]

Q: Your project included a public awareness campaign. Why do you think that was an important component?

A: Without public support, we wouldn’t be able to carry out any conservation efforts. What we have achieved so far is mainly due to the help of various local stakeholders. By public awareness I do not only mean the programs we organized with the local school students, or the production and publication of popular science articles in local languages on road-related issues, but also the various formal and informal meetings we had with the Tamil Nadu Forest Department and Tamil Nadu Highways Department. 

Q: Your CEPF funding ended in 2012, what’s been happening with the project since then?

A: Our team at Valparai base is constantly in touch with the forest and highway departments at various levels as and when required. It is essential to have long-term engagement with the stakeholders, especially with the highways department, to achieve wildlife-friendly roads in forested regions. 

During the CEPF-funded project we constructed canopy bridges; however, it should be noted that having canopy bridges is only an engineering and short-term solution and this is not an ecological solution. So now we are pushing for sustainable ecological solutions, such as suggesting not cutting trees during road widening and not slashing natural vegetation by the side of the road.

Recently, lion-tailed macaque troops living in the Puthuthottam fragment, which is penetrated by a main road, have shown behavioural alterations and have become habituated to people, resulting in conflicts with people—tourists feed them and monkeys visit open waste dumps and homes. The higher tourist influx and poor garbage disposal is accentuating the problems. We are now in the process of finding solutions to these issues and fostering coexistence through awareness programs. 

Q: Any lessons learned from the project?

A: It is important to have long-term engagement with various stakeholders to implement all the identified measures. We should also understand that this is not possible in the short-term period since it involves greater coordination between several government departments and private land owners. The knowledge gained from the research, once it is passed on to appropriate stakeholders, takes time to percolate into the system. However, with continuous engagement, it is possible to change the attitude of the stakeholders.​​