Barbary Macaque - Status

Status

Wild populations of Barbary macaques have suffered a major decline in recent years to the point of being declared in 2009 as an endangered species by the IUCN. Three-quarters of the world population are located in the Middle Atlas Mountains. Its habitat is restricted to rocky areas with sparse vegetation which are unsuitable for agriculture. The populations are isolated and increasingly inbred, with the risks this situation creates.

This species is also poached for live specimens as pets in the illegal pet trade, and for clandestine collectors. Spain is the main entry point in Europe. Today, no accurate data exist on the location and number of individuals out of their habitat. An unknown number of individuals are included in zoological collections, at other institutions, in private hands, in storage, or waiting to be relocated to appropriate destinations.

The habitat of the Barbary macaque is under threat from increased logging activity. As such, they are listed as endangered by the IUCN Red List. Local farmers view the monkeys as pests, and engage in extermination of the species. Once common throughout northern Africa and southern Europe, only an estimated 12,000 to 21,000 Barbary macaques are left in Morocco and Algeria. Once, their distribution was much more extensive, reaching Tunisia and Libya. Their range is no longer continuous, with only isolated areas of range remaining. During the Pleistocene, this species inhabited the Mediterranean coasts and Europe, reaching Italy, Hungary, Spain and France, and as far north as Germany and the British Isles. The species decreased with the arrival of the Ice Age, becoming extinct in the Iberian Peninsula 30,000 years ago.

The skull of a Barbary macaque was discovered during excavation in the 1970s at the pre-Christian Navan Fort in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Carbon dating tests suggest it died there in the third century BC.