I've been here twice I think and Bret's been several times to show visitors around. We always have a nice time and it's a good place to see monkeys in the wild.
For 100 yen you can feed them beans, vegetables, and other healthy snacks. There's a staff member for your safety, in case the monkeys start fighting over the food, which happens all the time. It's a little sad because obviously the stronger tougher monkeys push to the front to get the snacks, but you can throw the food out to the outer reaches of the gathered monkeys to give the outliers a shot. In my observations of watching people feed animals in these types of places, people always look for the hungriest and neediest looking ones to feed first, or the ones who can present themselves the most endearingly at the front. At least here at this monkey reserve there is a whole mountain of forest full of all sorts of things monkeys can eat, so if they don't feel like being in the mosh pit they can go find lots of things to snack on.
You can observe so much cute monkey behavior. The grooming and cuddling is so adorable. They do get boisterous and fight sometimes, which is a little jarring but doesn't last long.
Some of the rules posted around instruct you not to touch the monkeys or purposefully make eye contact with them, because it's aggressive.
But they'll happily mill about you. Last time I went I had a couple of monkeys investigating my pockets and things like that but they were pretty uninterested and skittish this time around. Which is good it means people arent feeding them out of their pockets. By having only one designated feeding area it keeps them from associating people with getting fed.
Snacking in the wild :)
Similar to what I look like when enjoying a snack after a day's work
I love how social they are and how big their groups are. They are a big community and it's a good non abusive place to see monkeys in their natural habitat.
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