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Herding Monkeys to Paradise is a study of the use of monkeys as a tourist attraction in Japan. Monkey parks are popular visitor attractions that display free-ranging troops of Japanese macaques to the paying public. The parks work by manipulating the movements of the monkey troop through the regular provision of food handouts at a fixed site where the monkeys can be easily viewed.
This system of management leads to a variety of problems, including proliferating monkey numbers, park-edge crop-raiding, and the sedentarization of the troop. In addition to falling visitor numbers, these problems have led to the closure or fencing in of many parks, calling into question the future of the monkey park as an institution.
Introduction
Chapter 1 Monkeys in Paradise
Monkeys and Monkey Parks
The Shadow of the Zoo
The ‘Natural Zoo’ Concept
Displaying Forest Monkeys
Chapter 2 Searching for Monkeys
Monkey Avoidance of Humans
The Mobility of the Troop
The Opacity of the Forest
Beyond the Impasse
Chapter 3 Provisioning the Monkeys
Provisioning for Science
Provisioning for Tourism
Provisioning as Crop Protection
Provisioning for Conservation
Chapter 4 Working with Monkeys
Working in the Park
Feeding the Monkeys
Policing the Park
Knowing the Monkeys
Chapter 5 Herding the Monkeys
Remote Herding
Attracting the Troop
Retaining and Returning the Troop
Seasonal Problems
Chapter 6 Keeping Out Monkeys
Park-edge ‘Monkey Damage’
Countermeasures
Counterhabituation
Contesting Responsibility
Chapter 7 Transforming the Monkeys
Proliferation
Sedentarization
Semi-domestication
Culture and Agency
Chapter 8 Restoring the Monkeys
Forest-edge Display
Forest Display
‘Monkeywatching’
Partial Restoration
Conclusion
John Knight, Ph.D. (1992) in Social Anthropology, London School of Economics, is Reader in Anthropology at Queen's University Belfast. He has published extensively on rural Japan and on human-animal relations, including Waiting for Wolves in Japan (Oxford, 2003).
