Feeding Platforms as an Effective Strategy to Prevent the Consumption of Refuse by Urban Populations of Capuchin Monkeys (Sapajus libidinosus).

The availability of manmade foodstuffs in the environment may significantly alter the diets, behavior and health of wild animals and the ecosystems ecology. One of the principal problems faced by urban populations of capuchin monkeys is their contact with household refuse, which may provoke a number of impacts on the health of these animals. The present study tested the use of feeding platforms as a strategy to reduce the consumption of unhealthy foodstuffs by these animals and analyzed the influence of this measure on the activity patterns and social interactions of the study groups.

Interactions with humans reduce the success of foraging for anthropogenic food by capuchin monkeys (Sapajus libidinosus) in Brasília National Park, Brazil.

The progressive growth of urban environments has increasingly forced populations of nonhuman primates to coexist with humans in many cities, which has resulted in problems such as behavioral alterations, conflicts with humans, and threats to the health of the monkeys, due to their consumption of anthropogenic foodstuffs. These anthropogenic foods, which are rich in calories, are the principal driver of the proximity between humans and primates, even though the acquisition of these foods tends to be risky for the monkeys and involve a variety of challenges derived from specific features of the urban environment. The present study evaluated the success/risk relationship of foraging for anthropogenic food by tufted capuchins (Sapajus libidinosus) in Brasília National Park.

Disputes over provisioned resources are no more intense between groups than within groups in free-ranging Sapajus libidinosus.

Socioecological models predict that disputes between primate groups will be more intense than those within groups, given that the systematic loss of contests over a given resource will restrict the access of all of the members of that group to that resource. Higher levels of aggression are also expected for provisioned resources that have a more lucrative cost:benefit ratio. The levels of aggression in and between two free-ranging tufted capuchin monkey (Sapajus libidinosus) groups in the context of daily provisioning with bananas were evaluated.

Time budget and foraging strategies of two provisioned groups of tufted capuchin monkeys, Sapajus libidinosus, in a small, seasonal urban forest fragment.

Studies of urban monkeys provide important insights into the behavioral flexibility of primate species. We studied two provisioned groups of capuchin monkeys that inhabit a small forest fragment in the city of Goiânia, Brazil. One of the groups was dominant and had priority of access to both native and provisioned resources.