User:Koalakid15/Ethnophoresy

Ethnophorecy.

Similar to a reintroduction, Ethnophorency refers to the process by which primates are brought to areas beyond their home range by humans. As opposed to many reintroductions which may occur to restore populations of endangered species to the wild, ethnophorency refers to introductions of primates unintentionally, often to island ecosystems.(( https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119179313.wbprim0272 )

African Monkeys

A well-known example of ethnophorency are the macaques of Gibraltar. Other examples include vervets introduced to the islands around the Carribbean by European settlers, who brought them over as a source of food on long journeys across the Atlantic. Many primates were originally brought to Cuba (Borroto-Paez, R 2009. Invasive mammals in Cuba: an overview. Biological Invasions 11: 2279-2290) and Puerto Rico as research subjects for studies that have since either been shut down, or the monkeys escaped and established a viable population on the islands. For example, vervets (green) were released on the 77,700-ha Cayo Romano, an island in Cuba's Camaguey Archipelago in the early 1980s. The purpose of the release was also to establish a free-ranging colony from which monkeys could be harvested for biological research. This release was also managed by the Cuban Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnologia, and medio ambiente. There were 50 founders, also from St. Kitts.

Lemurs

Mongoose lemurs (Eulemur mongoz) were brought to the Union of Comoros Islands of Grande Comore (Ngazidja, 120,500 ha), Anjouan (Ndzouwani or Nzwani, 42,400 ha) and Moheli (Mwali, 29,000), the latter of the two still exist today. They may have been brought from Madagascar by seafaring traders or fisheres, perhaps as early as the sixteenth century. THey may have been transported as food for the voyage, pets, and/or trading items. It is possible the lemurs rafted themselves to the island (Tattersall, I. 1977a. The lemurs of the Comoro islands. Oryx 13(5): 445-448.) Additionally, brown lemurs (Eulemur fulvus) from northwest Madagascar were introduced to the island of Mayotte at around the same time (Pastorini, J. Thalmann, U. and R.D. Martin 2003). These lemurs are genetically identical to the ones on the mainland continent of Madagascar (A molecular Approach to comparative phylogeography of extant lemurs. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 100(10): 5879-5884.)

Impacts

Many of these primates cause harm to the island ecosystems where they live. An example of this is crop raiding on the islands of the Caribbean including Grenada, St. Kitt's

Many islanders express a strong cultural attachment to the monkeys, despite their nuisance presence. On Gibraltar, the monkeys proved a critical part of British cultural heritage, and many residents of Florida express similar sentiments to the populations established there.