UW Today featured an artcile about Professor Randy Kyes:
“Since at least the 1970s, the population of critically endangered Sulawesi black macaques living in an Indonesian nature reserve has been dropping. But a new study by researchers at the University of Washington and in Indonesia shows that the population has stabilized over the past decade.
The findings, published in the January issue of the American Journal of Primatology, are from the longest ongoing survey of Macaca nigra and are among the first evidence that the monkeys may be in better shape.
“Fifteen years ago it looked like this macaque population would continue its decline and eventually disappear,” said Randall Kyes, lead author and UW research professor of psychology. This study “doesn’t mean that everything is fine now and that we no longer need to worry about the fate of these animals, but it is good news compared with what we’ve seen over the past 30-plus years in this reserve.”
Since 1997, Kyes and his Indonesian colleagues have conducted conservation-related studies of the black macaques at the Tangkoko Nature Reserve in North Sulawesi, Indonesia – an area known for its biodiversity, which attracts flocks of tourists each year. He and his team began the newly published population survey in 1999 and collected data through 2011.”