It was the morning of December 26, 2004. Manpreet Kaur (name changed), 71, vividly remembers excited neighbours telling her the sea was coughing up large fish. When she reached the shore to snag some, she saw a mountain-sized wave racing towards her. She and her children ran up a hill just before the wave swallowed their home in one large gulp. “The tsunami took everything from us — our homes, our farms, our families. What it gave us in return were these monkeys,” she says, pointing at a scruffy macaque racing up a coconut palm in her backyard.
Kaur now lives alone in a ramshackle one-room kitchen hut on a sprawling 15-acre coconut plantation in Campbell Bay, the only town on the last island of the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago. Eighty per cent of Great Nicobar Island is demarcated as a protected reserve that shelters an evergreen forest about 146-66 million years old. In 1969, 330 ex-servicemen and their families were settled here and given 12-20 acres of land each. The scheme, initiated under Indira Gandhi’s government, was a strategic move to populate and secure the country’s isolated southern tip. The first batch of families from Punjab arrived on a navy vessel with groceries, clothes, and mosquito nets. They cleared large tracts of forest, built homes, and cultivated farms from nothing.
A mother and her baby feed on pandanus tree fruit. Like most other macaques, Nicobar long-tailed macaques have cheek pouches in which they can temporarily store food.
Cover Photo: Nicobar long-tailed macaques are endemic to the Nicobar Islands, where they occupy dense tropical evergreen and mangrove forests; they are also spotted in and around plantations near human settlements.
The new settlers moved into a land dominated by another primate — the Nicobar long-tailed macaque. Extremely adaptable, long-tailed macaques are the second most widespread primate species globally. The Nicobar long-tailed macaque (Macaca fascicularis umbrosus) is one of ten subspecies. It is seen only on Great Nicobar, Little Nicobar, and Katchal islands. Given its limited range, the IUCN declared it “Vulnerable”, and the Indian government has protected it under the Wild Life (Protection) Act 1972.
Like humans, Nicobar long-tailed macaques are creative, social, and intelligent. A 2020 academic paper states that they have been seen turning objects into tools, even flossing their teeth with leaf fibres and coir — practices only recorded in two other macaque species in the world. If a food item is dirty or covered with thorns, they may wipe it with a leaf. These behavioural traits have allowed the macaques to disperse and survive in these islands for at least 2.5-3 million years, while several other species have gone extinct. In contrast, humans have arrived in the Nicobar islands not more than 5000 years ago.
Nicobar long-tailed macaques are omnivores, eating anything from fruits, seeds, insects, and vegetables to foraging in garbage dumps. (Left) A macaque feeds on the fruit of the pandanus (screw pine) tree. (Right) Macaques have also started feeding on coconuts from plantations leading to clashes with farmers.
Seventeen years after the tsunami, as I walk around the island, it seems like that disaster still shapes every story. The waves destroyed 97 per cent of the mangroves – former bastions of the macaques — and swallowed several kilometres of coast that remain underwater. It also upturned the geography of Campbell Bay. Thousands lost homes and lives, and the macaque population declined. More forests were cleared to make room for rehabilitation settlements — not all have efficient garbage disposal systems. The fruit-loving macaques were increasingly seen foraging in dumps. Farms that once cultivated paddy and millet were ravaged by saline waters, making them unfit for cultivation. Instead, easy-to-maintain coconut plantations and other hardy species were boosted under post-tsunami schemes.
When people moved into their forest homes, a few macaque troops receded into the forests, but others were forced to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances. Nicobar long-tailed macaques are loyal to their sites, and competitive troops guard territories fiercely.
Slowly, as both human and monkey populations regained strength, the tussle for territory and resources intensified. Several farmers who once lived on or close to their farms were resettled in rehabilitation colonies far away and had to depend on a fixed bus schedule to get to them. The inability to watch over their farms after dusk bred insecurity and fear among the farmers. Soon macaques were seen as aggressive intruders — not just taking coconuts but also scaring children, breaking into homes, stealing food. “A few weeks ago, the monkeys slapped my farm’s guard dog, ripped apart his stomach and killed him,” complained Kaur. Another local told us that the “terror” caused by two troops in Campbell Bay inspired rather curious names for them — Gangs of Wasseypur and Gangs of Mirzapur. “They are mafias. Their population has exploded. Every troop has over a hundred now,” he said.
Nicobar long-tailed macaques live in social, gregarious troops numbering anywhere between 14-80 individuals. Troops have an alpha male and female at the centre of social life.
Interestingly, I speak to a researcher working on the island for five years who says the actual number in the troop is barely 18. “We haven’t recorded a single troop in Great Nicobar with over a hundred macaques,” he says. His stories are starkly different — of nurturing alpha males that rescue juveniles tangled and caught in fishnets or females co-parenting. The researchers’ names for the troops are different. The troop that lives around a temple is called TR, short for Temple Run, a popular video game, while the other troop that forages along the beach is called Pirates.
A research paper published in the journal Primate Conservation in 2020 looks at the feeding habits of macaques as they cope with a rapidly urbanising habitat. For instance, macaques have followed specific routes to enter the plantations, led by senior members of the troop. Often, once the coconuts or areca nuts are secured, they transport them to safe places in dense vegetation nearby. These are new adaptations that the macaques have developed in a changing habitat and can be indicative of advanced problem-solving skills that would have been lauded among humans. But the macaques face a backlash — guard dogs have killed and mauled several while farmers have poisoned, electrocuted, and shot at them.
Rapid deforestation and urbanisation in Campbell Bay has forced the macaques to adapt and live around human settlements where they are unwelcome.
Researchers argue that the “perception” of damage macaques cause may not align with reality. They say, macaques are one of the many reasons for crop damage, but the gregarious, highly visible troops often become an easy target for blame. Where forests are fragmented, troops simply crossing plantations to travel from one place to another are pelted with stones. Many troops use coconut plantations for resting and sleeping. New emerging research is, in fact, turning the perception of “thieving macaques” on its head. It shows that the macaques also feed on agricultural pests of coconuts like the rhinoceros beetle, slug-moth caterpillar, and earwig. This could benefit the farmers. A few farmers have also observed that the macaques may be helpful in harvesting areca nuts as they throw the seeds on the floor. In forests, macaques are seed dispersers. In the case of areca nuts, they feed on the fleshy outer portion and discard the seed. “The relationship between macaques and people could be far more complex and mutually beneficial than we are aware of,” the researcher argues.
However, it is impossible to understand the clashes without recognising the vulnerabilities that the people of the remote archipelago face, argues Partha Sarthi Mishra, who worked on the islands from 2013 to 2017 and co-authored a paper on the complex relationship between the macaques and farmers. Two generations later, isolation still defines life on Campbell Bay, only worsened by the pandemic. Getting here is still a two-day journey from Port Blair on a passenger-cum-cargo ship on an unreliable schedule, and this difficulty also applies to acquiring any food staples, medicines etc.
As the moon rises the macaques retreat to their secure sleeping sites, usually among trees, and emerge only at dawn.
The popular sentiment of macaques as “villains” has unfortunately made its way into new development plans for the islands. In mid-2021, the NITI Aayog released a Rs 75,000 crore vision for the “Holistic Development of Great Nicobar Island in Andaman and Nicobar Islands”. The accompanying Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) report notes that though the “macaque is included under the Vulnerable category, it has become a menace locally in Campbell Bay”. It implies that the highest protection status given to the macaques is a hindrance to adopting severe measures to control their population. Wildlife experts responding to the report strongly argue that most macaques avoid human interaction and contribute to the habitat’s ecological balance. More forests may be chopped down for the projects. This may escalate tensions and compel macaques to depend on crops and live closer to human settlements.
At the end of a field day, on one full-moon evening, we see the otherwise gregarious macaques silently settle in a tree canopy. While the adults look statuesque silhouetted against the rising moon, a young one continues its acrobatics. “I have grown up with these monkeys,” says Kaur. “As children, we learned they were avatars of the deity Hanuman. Today we treat them like thieves, but I know, like me, they have nowhere else to go. This island is all they have.”
