The attached photo was downloaded from NCHU Organic Farmers' Market web site (http://nchuorganicfm.blogspot.com/) with permission. It is one of the photos taken from the wild monkeys we saw in the trees on the road when we were hiking from the Twin Rivers 二 水 of Chang-Hua county to Ming-Jeng 名間village of the Nan-Tou county. (Read my 5/25/09 story)I was so surprised to see the wild monkeys living so close to human beings because the place we took the photo was in the park which had many pedestrians walking-by. Out of curiosity, I did a research on this type of monkey and was equally surprised to find out such a species of the wild monkey is actually listed as an "endangered species" in Taiwan and in the world.
This type of monkey is called the Formosan macaque or the Formosan rock-monkey (Macaca cyclopis). In Taiwan, it is called Taiwan Mi-Monkey 台灣獼猴. The color of the monkey faces can be either red or white. The monkey has a typical round head and only exists in Taiwan. In 1993, a statistics was taken that the total population of the monkey was only 780. Because they live so close to human beings, they often beg food or steal food from the pedestrian passing by their living habitat. Because wild monkeys often carry hepatitis virus, mingling of monkeys and human being is dangerous both to human beings and the monkeys. This presents a difficult task for the Taiwanese government to manage this endangered species in Taiwan. The nature habitat for the monkeys is rock mountain which has been invaded by human beings who had expanded their living space from the great plains to the mountains.
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