Victims Perspectives of Lowe’s Monkeys’ (Cercopithecus campbelli lowei) crop raiding events in Ghana: A case of Boabeng-Fiema Monkey Sanctuary
Paper Details
Victims Perspectives of Lowe’s Monkeys’ (Cercopithecus campbelli lowei) crop raiding events in Ghana: A case of Boabeng-Fiema Monkey Sanctuary
Abstract
The conflict arising as a result of human and non-human interaction on a single landscape was investigated in Ghana at the Boabeng-Fiema monkey sanctuary. Semi-structured interview guides were used to investigate the farmers’ perceptions of the crop-raiding issue and the respondents were selected from randomly selected houses. Irrespective of belief or knowledge system, majority of the respondents complained of crop or food damage by Lowe’s monkey, with no reliable effective deterrent measures. The monkeys caused a lot of damage to human food growing in the field, in storage as well as prepared food ready to be consumed. The monkeys also used force to seize the food items from the humans especially the children, women and very old adults. About 61% of the respondents attributed the increase in crop raiding to increase in primates numbers, 29% attributed it to habitat decrease while 4% attributed it to inefficiency in the use of crop protection methods. Neither the dry nor wet seasons were found to be a barrier to monkeys’ damage to human food as 97% of the respondents had observed that the disturbance of the monkeys to human food occurred throughout the year. Since the monkeys play a significant role in the culture of the people, non-destructive methods to reduce the food/crop raiding incidences have been depended though these methods have proved ineffective. A more effective friendly method to reduce the conflict must be investigated and implemented to ensure continues coexistence between human and non-human primates.
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