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More Visitors Were Linked to Less Grooming Among Female Rhesus Macaques at Pashupatinath

Rhesus macaque at Pashupatinath Temple in Kathmandu, Nepal
Research · Behaviour

A field study at Pashupatinath Temple in Kathmandu found that human presence was associated with measurable changes in the daily behaviour of rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta). Researchers compared two groups living in areas with high and low anthropogenic pressure and recorded behaviour using focal-animal and scan sampling.

Focal-animal sampling follows one selected animal for a defined period and records its behaviour, while scan sampling records what multiple visible animals are doing at set moments.

Across both groups, resting and sitting accounted for 41% of the combined activity budget, followed by grooming at 24.8%, movement at 17.5%, feeding and foraging at 15.9%, and aggression at 0.87%. Macaques in the high-pressure area spent more time feeding and foraging than those in the low-pressure area.

Female grooming declined as visitor numbers increased

The clearest sex-specific effect involved social grooming. Females in the low-pressure area spent more time grooming than females in the high-pressure area, and the number of visitors around focal animals was negatively associated with female grooming time. Feeding and foraging, by contrast, increased with visitor numbers. The researchers observed regular provisioning at the temple, including boiled flour dough as well as food offered by visitors.

Males spent more time resting, moving and behaving aggressively than females, while females devoted more time to grooming. The authors interpret the reduced grooming under heavier human pressure as a potential consequence of interruptions and provisioning, while noting that other factors such as nearby dogs, dominance relationships and weather may also influence grooming. They recommend visitor codes of conduct and limits on direct feeding at the temple.

Sources and image credit

  1. Karki, M., Sharma, S., Dangol, D., Pandey, N., Novak, M., Kyes, R. C., & Khanal, L. (2026). Human presence exerts sex-biased effects on the activity budgets of temple rhesus macaques in the Pashupatinath Area, Nepal. Journal of Animal Behaviour and Biometeorology, 14(1), e2026007. https://doi.org/10.31893/jabb.2026007Primary research article published online 23 February 2026. Two groups of free-ranging rhesus macaques at Pashupatinath Temple were compared under high and low anthropogenic pressure. Feeding/foraging was greater in the high-pressure area, female grooming was lower there, and visitor numbers were negatively associated with female grooming but positively associated with feeding/foraging.

Image: Šarūnas Burdulis — rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta) at Pashupatinath Temple, Kathmandu, Nepal, photographed 16 March 2018; site-specific image, not an individually identified study animal. Source: Wikimedia Commons. · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Source

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