Spider Monkey Research and Monitoring

On June 5 in the year 2002, Mexican federal authorities decreed a new protected area in the northeast of the Yucatan peninsula in the states of Quintana Roo and Yucatan. The area, known as Otoch ma'ax yetel kooh ("House of the Spider Monkey and the Puma" in Yucatecan Maya) has an important population of spider monkeys and sections of well-preserved primary forest. Since 1994, researchers from diverse institutions in Mexico and abroad have studied the Ecology and the behavior of the spider monkeys in the protected area. This study is the longest ever undertaken on any spider monkey species, and the area represents a great source of data on its ecology and behaviour. On the other hand, and given that the spider monkeys utilize large areas of forest to meet their diet requirements, one can consider them an "umbrella" species, whose protection assures the related protection of many other species within the same ecosystem.

Objective

To generate the necessary information for the conservation of the population of spider monkeys within the protected area.

Expectations

Over the next two years, PPY expects to establish a permanent monitoring system with data on the spider monkey habitat use and on the slash and burn agricultural system. PPY expects that the results will help to determining maximum rates of slash and burn for each type of vegetation that takes into account factors such as land area used of each type of vegetation in the protected zone

Results

Population census of spider monkeys completed. In 1998 Laura Ibarra and Juan Pedro González-Kirchner, from the Autonomous University of Yucatan, carried out a population census in the protected area. A highly dense population was found within 70 square kilometers, which means that within the 5367 hectares there could exist a population of up to 670 spider monkeys.

Social Behaviour and Ecology of the spider monkeys. The research project in the protected area was initiated by la Dr. Laura Vick en 1994. Since then and with the collaboration of Filippo Aureli, Gabriel Ramos-Fernández, Colleen Schaffner and David Taub, as well as Eulogio, Macedonio, Juan and Augusto Canul, from the community of Punta Laguna, the research has continued uninterrupted.
To date PPY has published various articles on the spider monkeys in various magazines and academic publications.