Home range use of crop-raiding Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) inShiga Prefecture, Tokushima Prefecture and Ehime Prefecture

Given that agricultural damage caused by Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) are serious nationwide, prompt damage control is required. To ensure effective damage control, it is necessary to gain an understanding of the home range use of crop-raiding troops. To date, however, relatively few studies have sought to determine such home range usage. In this study, we investigated the types of vegetation used by crop-raiding macaque troops inhabiting Shiga, Tokushima, and Ehime prefectures. Analysis of the data recorded by GPS collars attached to individuals in seven troops revealed that crop-raiding troops were less likely to venture into farmland. However, for all monitored troops, more than 50% of the total positioning data were derived from forested areas (including bamboo forest) within 70 m of farmland, with a higher percentage being recorded in Shiga than in either Tokushima or Ehime. Furthermore, we found that when crop-raiding troops were detected in farmland, the shortest distance to forest was in most cases within 50 m, although distances tended to be longer in Shiga than in Tokushima and Ehime. On the basis of these observations, we thus established that crop-raiding troops tended to remain within forested areas in the vicinity of farmland, and that those distributed in Shiga Prefecture were characterized by bolder use of farmland than were those found in Tokushima and Ehime prefectures. Consequently, we predict that control measures targeting the areas surrounding farmlands would contribute to reducing the agricultural damage attributable to macaques.