Differences in daily life between semiprovisioned and wild‐feeding baboons

Abstract

Activity budgets and social aspects of feeding, among the adult females in a group of semiprovisioned baboons that fed from a garbage dump were compared with those of adjacent wild‐feeding groups in Amboseli National Park, Kenya, during the dry seasons of 1984 and 1985. Statistically significant differences were found in time spent feeding, distance travelled, and the relationship between dominance rank and time spent feeding. The garbage‐feeding animals fed for 20% of the time and rested for almost 50%, in contrast to approximately 60% and 10%, respectively, for the wild‐feeding animals. Speed of travel, length of day‐route, and home range size were greatly reduced for the garbage‐feeding animals. Use of sleeping trees and day route were highly regular in contrast to the unprovisioned group. At the garbage dump, time spent feeding was correlated with dominance rank among the adult females of this study. This was not the case for feeding on wild foods. Human enriched food sources offer the opportunity to study limiting factors and relationships between ecology and behavior. However, these conditions lead to human–animal conflicts that may be to the animals' long‐term detriment. Conservation and management implications are discussed.