NORTH SULAWESI, Indonesia, May 27 (UPI) — That “15 minutes of fame” isn’t easy to come by if you’re a monkey. There’s no YouTube for primates.
But there is YouTube for humans, and one Old World Monkey, a rare black-crested macaque, took a shot and made it big — from Wildlife Conservation Society trap camera to World Wide Web.
Just a few weeks after installing motion sensor-activated cameras, WCS is sharing amazing new footage of wildlife captured on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.
One new video features a pair of black-crested macaques, a critically endangered monkey species, while another stars a Sulawesi warty pig and a flock of maleos, an endangered bird species endemic to the island.
One monkey is seen chattering, an expressive behavior employed in a variety of situations. In this instance, scientists say, it most likely exhibits his curiosity in the camera.
“Our initial results are already providing very exciting insights into Sulawesi’s unexplored rainforests as you can see with these quirky characters showing up in the video traps,” Noviar Andayani, director of WCS Indonesia Country, said in a news release.
In collaboration with Bogani Nani Wartabone National Park authority, WCS scientists are continuing to set up camera traps throughout North Sulawesi.
Scientists hope the cameras will aid the study and protection of the region’s biodiversity, which researchers say is unparalleled.
“Sixty-seven percent of Sulawesi’s mammals are endemic, but if you remove bats this rises to 99 percent. There are 72 endemic mammal species,” said Iwan Hunowu, WCS’s Northern Sulawesi Coordinator. “The camera trap results will be critical in informing our conservation strategy.”
