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St. Kitts and Nevis wrestles with mischievous invaders: Monkeys

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June 30, 2020
in Featured, Press Releases
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Basseterre, St. Kitts, June 30, 2020 (DOE): As iconic as the islands’ pristine beaches and tropical forests,  the  60,000-plus  green  monkeys  of  St.  Kitts  and  Nevis  are  a  quintessential  part  of  the Caribbean experience for many visitors.

 

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But while these photogenic mischief-makers might charm tourists, they pose serious threats to the twin-island  Federation.  Likely first  brought  to  the  islands  from  West  Africa  as  exotic  pets  by European settlers in the 17th century, today the monkeys are putting pressure on native species, decimating crops and consistently evading efforts to scare them off.

 

“Feral  animals,  particularly  monkeys  and  wild  pigs,  cause  considerable  yield  loss  to  food production each year,” says Melvin James, St. Kitts and Nevis’ Director of Agriculture. “In 2018, crude estimates indicated that a total of 90 metric tons of food—one month’s production—was rendered unmarketable due to feral animal invasion of farms on St. Kitts alone.”

 

The United Nations Environment Programme and partners are working with the Government of St. Kitts and Nevis to research the impact of green monkeys on biodiversity, agriculture, tourism, and households. Backed by the Global Environment Facility, the program, formally known as the “Preventing COSTS of Invasive Alien Species in Barbados and the OECS Countries project”, will also develop a sustainable plan to manage the green monkey population.

 

Naitram Ramnanan, Regional Representative for project partner the  Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International (CABI), said green monkeys are becoming increasingly problematic in the region.

 

The  sustainable  management  plan  that  will  be  developed  in  St.  Kitts  and  Nevis  will  also  be replicated in Barbados and other islands. The leader of the research team is Dr. Kerry M. Dore, a biological anthropologist with expertise in human-primate interactions.

 

Dr. Dore’s team has already monitored crop losses across 65 randomly selected farms on St. Kitts and is currently monitoring losses on 26 farms and 22 backyard gardens, alongside conducting surveys to gauge the economic toll of green monkeys on agriculture.

 

Having already discovered the primates have an appetite for a wide range of native fauna, including West Indian tree ferns, opuntia cacti, bromeliads, heliconias, and philodendron, the researchers are now planning to gauge the toll of the monkeys on the Federation’s bird population. By mimicking the nesting behavior of locally important bird species across a wide range of habitats with quail eggs  planted  in  fake  nests  the  team  hopes  to  measure  the  scale  and  pattern  of  the  monkeys’ predation.

 

“Broadly speaking, we know that invasive species are the number one threat to biodiversity on islands,” Dr. Dore says. “Our goal for this portion of the project is to obtain the information the government needs to make informed management decisions that will benefit the environmental health of the Federation.”

 

With data from the ongoing research to be used to assess the economic impact of green monkeys on St. Kitts and Nevis’ agricultural sector and biodiversity, work to evaluate the monkeys’ impact on tourism and households will begin in the fall of 2020.

 

According to Eavin Parry, Environmental Scientist in the Department of  Environment and Co- Director for the Project, “With the assistance of the project, St. Kitts and Nevis has embarked on a monkey management pilot project with a view to ascertain the national economic impact of the green monkey on agriculture, tourism and households.  Additionally, the project aims to validate capture  techniques  for  green  monkeys  under  local  conditions,  evaluate  the  feasibility  of  cost recovery  mechanisms  for  sustainably  managing  the  monkey  population,  and  to  produce  a management plan to guide future monkey control programmes.”

 

The  local  executing  agencies  for  the  project  are  the  Department  of  Environment  and  the

Department of Agriculture.

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