Munich

A top primatologist has pulled out of field research in Gibraltar, in protest at the culling of a group of marauding Barbary macaques that had been part of a long-term conservation study.

Robert Martin, vice-president of the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History, also boycotted an international macaque conference last week in Gibraltar — even though he was one of its organizers.

“The culling without warning of half of our study group has effectively terminated our research project. There is no point in continuing,” says Martin.

The couple of hundred semi-wild Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus) that populate the rock of Gibraltar, a small British crown colony at the southern tip of Spain, are the only non-human primates living outside captivity in Europe. The well-characterized population provides an ideal model for ecologists studying the genetic effects of habitat fragmentation — a key question in primate ecology and conservation biology.

Eight years ago, Martin, then at the University of Zürich, Switzerland, began monitoring reproduction and genetic variability in a 50-strong macaque colony on Gibraltar's Middle Hill. The study was meant to provide guidelines for the conservation management of threatened wild macaque populations in forest fragments in Algeria and Morocco.

It is not known whether the Barbary macaques are indigenous to Gibraltar, but legend says that when they leave, the peninsula will cease to be British. The myth has been taken so seriously that after a critical decline during the Second World War, Winston Churchill, then Britain's prime minister, issued a 1942 order to import some of the animals from North Africa.

The macaques are a major tourist attraction, but in recent years they have multiplied to nuisance levels. The Gibraltar government has repeatedly ordered the culling of monkeys found roaming built-up areas in search of food. In July, half of Martin's study group were killed after some animals were found vandalizing property and attacking children.

“There was a public-health risk, so we had no choice,” says Mark Pizarro, a surgeon at Gibraltar's veterinary clinic.

But Martin says that the monkeys would not have outgrown their habitat if the government had not ignored timely scientific advice. “I submitted as early as 1997 detailed proposals on effective population control by means of contraception, but nothing much was done,” he says.

The Gibraltar Ornithological and Natural History Society, which has recently taken over the management of the macaque colony, tried in vain to prevent the culling.

“There was too much public pressure on the government to take action,” says John Cortes, general secretary of the society, whose intervention persuaded the government to agree not to have the entire group killed, as had been initially planned.

Martin's withdrawal from the government-sponsored conference is understandable, says Cortes. “But I still believe it would have been better if he had come and made his point here.”

→ http://www.gib.gi/gonhs/gibraltar/congress.htm