Our colleagues from Animal Neighbours produced this video below to show how to secure rubbish bins properly. This responsible action helps address inadvertent food provisioning due to inadequate waste management. Unintentional feeding is one of the root causes of negative interactions with macaques in urban areas, identified during our collaborative workshop in March 2023. When macaque monkeys can access and develop a “taste” for human food items, they will often include these “leftovers” into the range of food this highly adaptable monkey eats. These animals often quickly develop such a liking for this monkey “junk food” that they may even prioritise this over their natural diets. This creates problems for monkeys and people who, because of ongoing wildlife habitat loss, are forced to live nearer to each other and encounter each other more often.
Animal Neighbours received a grant in April to create consistent manufacturing and increase production of the bin locks should in the video on the left to secure rubbish bins shown in this video. We hope these will be available for new trials in Sabah soon. In the meantime, these videos offer another method. This method could also be used to secure worker lunch boxes in oil palm plantations.
Additional note :
Sabah participants in the March Workshop if you have not already filled in the post workshop feedback and questionnaire please do so via the link below. https://forms.gle/dFLNmaT1QxHsxuJt5.
If you are a non-Sabah based participant we will be sending out a separate feedback and update email soon. Many Thanks !
