David Whitley gets a taste of why Gibraltar’s Barbary macaques are become a problem in the tiny British territory.
Monkey on my back
Trying to shake a monkey off your back is usually a figure of speech, but not necessarily in Gibraltar.
It took one look around to realise that it wasn’t a friend playing a prank – a wild ape really had leapt on top of me. And it was trying to get my key fob.
At Gibraltar’s Rock Hotel, the key fobs come in the form of little furry toy monkeys. I had tucked mine into the neck of my shirt so that I had both hands free for my camera, and my assailant was trying to investigate. Reaching round, she may well have been investigating whether I was kidnapping one of her children.
Europe’s only wild primates
Of course, it’s this sort of behaviour that makes the monkeys – technically Barbary macaques – Gibraltar’s biggest tourist attraction. Apart from a colony in Germany – which was taken there from the tiny British territory – the Rock’s apes are the only wild primates on the European mainland.
The tailless monkeys have become accustomed to human contact over the years and most of them know exactly how to play the visitors.
Gibraltar’s ape cull
But they can occasionally go too far, and earlier this year a controversial cull was introduced.
The Gibraltarian Government decided to have a pack of 25 monkeys put down after it became too much of a nuisance in residential areas.
A Government spokesman said that the monkeys had been spotted going through rubbish, vandalising property, stealing from people and “running riot” on the beach at Catalan Bay.
Members of the pack also broke into the Caleta Hotel, ransacking guest rooms in search of food.
Windows and doors had to remain permanently closed in the areas the monkeys descended on, while there was also a risk of tetanus and hepatitis from bites.
Despite efforts to relocate the pack back to the Upper Rock, they continued to return, and it was decided that there was no other option but to cull.
The move was heavily criticised, with the International Primate Protection League attempting to bring about a tourist boycott of Gibraltar in response to the cull.
The Ape’s Den, Upper Rock
The storm has largely passed now, however. The remaining 200 or so monkeys are as popular as ever, judging from the giggling crowds at the Ape’s Den.
Though the Barbary Macaques can be found scattered across the Upper Rock, most tourists come into contact with them at the Den. Near the cable car station, it has spectacular views over Spain, Morocco and the Mediterranean. The macaques are usually happy to sit on the railings posing for pictures, and there are frames to clamber over for when they’re feeling a bit more energetic.
How they got there in the first place, no-one is sure about. One highly unlikely tale is that they travelled from Morocco in a subterranean tunnel under the Strait of Gibraltar. It’s more likely that they were brought over by British soldiers and sailors in the 18th century, either as pets or targets to practice shooting at.
Local legend
An old local legend has it that when the apes leave Gibraltar, so will the British. The tiny Mediterranean base was a vital strategic outpost during the Second World War, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill wasn’t about to take any chances.
The amount of apes on the Rock was dwindling due to natural causes at the time, so Churchill insisted on importing more from Africa, just to keep the numbers up.
Dealing with the Barbary Macaques
Tourists are continually warned not to touch or feed the monkeys – there is a £500 fine for the latter, while there is a series of signs stating that the monkeys are wild. Some show monkeys bearing sharp teeth, others feature cartoons of a visitor having his leg bitten after trying to play with an ape.
Carrying openly visible plastic bags is a practice that is discouraged – the apes have learned to associate them with food. Visitors are also told to keep car and bus windows closed whilst on the Rock. It is not unknown for a tour group to come back to the bus to find a monkey on the seat, tucking into a bag of crisps and swigging from a Coke can.
Bad behaviour
Others have been spotted hitching a lift after clambering on top of buses, or riding on the cable cars.
And then there are the key fob thieves. Amid much guffawing from the rapidly assembling sadists around me, I eventually managed to escape a mauling by shaking off my inquisitive rider off onto a climbing frame.
It pays not to laugh too hard at another’s misfortune, however. Once it had finished with me, the cheeky little blighter scampered over to another pair of tourists, and snatched at their camera strap. Having dropped the camera in shock, the pair were then horrified to see their precious equipment disappearing over the fence and down the Rock in the hands of the world’s cutest mugger.
Two visitors, at least, were suddenly in favour of a wider cull.
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