The Genial Monkeys of Emei

By CAO HONG

Tibetan macaques snuggle up.

MANY of China's beautiful mountainous areas are home to monkeys, the most famous monkey resort being Emei Mountain. Perhaps affected by the mountain's Buddhist atmosphere, Emei's monkeys are gentle and often approach tourists for food and play. Cute and impish, these delightful creatures are the main attraction for many visitors.

Presently, there are over 1,000 Emei monkeys, of the Tibetan macaque species - a unique quadrumane in China. Of the group that lives in and around the mountain, some are wild and have no contact with human beings, while others live near the tourist area and mainly eat in the wild. Most famous are those that interact with and are fed by tourists.

Policies exist forbidding tourists to bring food into the Emei animal area, and the ranger station regulates the amount of food being fed to monkeys. Every day the district limits it to 600 packs, a measure taken to prevent monkeys from getting hypertension, diabetes and cerebral thrombosis. One ranger comments that before the policies, visitors fed the monkeys chocolate, bread, cake, potato chips and candies, causing a steady increase in obesity. Bad eating habits caused most monkeys to gain between 3 and 10 kgs weight. In 2002, the ranger administration put the monkeys on a diet, limiting their diet to mainly vegetables and fruits. The largest monkey on the mountain now is 1.12 meters tall and weighs 45 kg.

The monkeys are fed promptly at 9am. They stand in lines, like children at kindergarten, and wait for the rangers to come around with food. As rangers in the ecological district whistle and use gongs, the monkeys know to come to the same place every day. Calling in different ways brings different groups of monkeys, and the hierarchy of size and territory determines the order of feeding. There are three groups of wild monkeys in the district - lanla, yellow and black monkeys. Because they eat in order of each group's strength, yellow monkeys, the biggest group with the largest sphere of influence, are first.

Emei's is the biggest natural ecological monkey district in China. It's only one kilometer from the famous "two bridges and clear sound," one of the ten must-see tourists destinations on Emei Mountain. With a range of 10 square kilometers, an altitude of 750-1200 meters and 95 percent forest cover, the mountain area provides a favorable ecological environment for monkeys.