Ranong - Dogs on illegal palm plantations threatening "educated" Macaques

[francescoassisi]

This encapsulates so many of Thailand's shortcomings....unregulated development, lack of concern for wildlife or environment and populations of dogs roaming unchecked.

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23711013

The aftermath of the Tsunami started a second flood - that of unscrupulous land/property developers. Those with cash and influence displaced many who lived there or simply replaced those too fearful to return. Much of the land has been illegally used to grow oil palms.

The owners of these plantations keep dogs; it seems they are harassing the local monkeys.

Why is this significant? Because in Laem Son National Park these are one of the very rare examples of monkeys that have learned to use tools and scientists fear they may lose that skill.

Until now this has been a truly wild population of monkeys and the researchers fear that as they become familiarised to living close to humans they will lose their skills in favour of living out of garbage bins.