Puteri’s Companions – Moni

Moni lives in the Nglanggeran Jungle with her colony, a big family of long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis). The forest used to be a resourceful place for them. The current urban developments, however, are making it increasingly difficult for the macaques to obtain food in the forest. The areas with suitable food patches have shrunk. The expansion of the Nglanggeran Jungle as a tourism area exposes it to various human activities. It compromises the liveable capacities of the jungle as a natural habitat for nonhuman beings. During the dry season, the jungle cannot provide sufficient water and food for the macaques. This situation forces the colony to go outside the forest and find food elsewhere. The close interaction with humans, in the zoo or in the natural reserve, is changing the diet pattern of the macaques, becoming increasingly dependent on human food such as cooked rice, noodles, pancakes, bread, and soda drinks. (1) The inhabitants of the villages around the forest are always wary of the macaques when the dry season comes.
Moni’s parents – Ratih the mother, Agung the father – frequently join other adult members on important food search missions. The villages surrounding the forest serve as the nearest places to find potential food sources. Farmers’ fields become the main targets. They are full of delicious food – corn, soybeans, ground nuts, mung beans, cassava, and sweet potatoes. Feeling threatened by the macaques, who always appear in a big group of 50 to 100, farmers and villagers attempt to drive the macaques away using various unpleasant methods. Some villagers shoot them with the air rifle and try to scare them using firecrackers. One day, on one of the missions to search for food in the village of Umbulsari, Ratih almost got shot. Umbulsari is not far from Puteri’s whereabouts and Puteri has been paying close attention to the macaques’ actions.