Macaques are among the most widely distributed primates, living in close proximity to humans across Asia. This proximity creates welfare challenges from tourism exploitation, urban conflict, and disease transmission.
Macaque welfare is compromised across multiple human-interface contexts. Performance animals trained through aversive methods suffer physical and psychological harm during training and ongoing stress in performance environments. Tourist-fed temple macaques consume inappropriate diets causing obesity, dental disease, and hyperaggressive behaviour driven by competition for provisioned food. Biomedical research macaques face capture stress, transport, and laboratory conditions. Urban conflict macaques trapped and killed in population management programmes suffer traumatic deaths. The shared space between macaques and humans, while often appearing harmonious, conceals significant welfare costs on the macaque side. Responsible wildlife tourism — observing without feeding, maintaining distance, and avoiding contact — significantly reduces welfare harm to individual macaques.