A good rule of thumb when entering wildlife habitats is to keep a safe distance from wildlife. In some cases, however, these animals are part of the city landscape and impossible to avoid.
One tourist experienced the mischievous behavior of wild monkeys in Gibraltar. The incident was shared on TikTok by bystander svitch.97 (@svitch.97).
The TikTok clip shows a young tourist calmly walking up a flight of stairs past two wild monkeys. One of the monkeys climbs up the stair railing and hops onto the backpack the tourist is carrying.
The tourist is visibly rattled, seen jerking and turning, trying to shake the monkey off their back to no avail. The tourist accepts their fate and continues walking while the monkey paws at their shoulders and the bag. Almost as if the monkeys had years of practice robbing tourists, the monkey positioned itself upside down, reaching for the bag’s zipper.
“The monkey checking the pockets for food,” one commenter wrote.
The monkeys in Gibraltar are the only wild monkeys in Europe, drawing thousands of tourists each year. There are about 300 individuals, split into five groups, that roam the streets of Gibraltar.
These monkeys are notorious for stealing things from nearby humans, taking food, souvenirs, cigars, and more, occasionally attacking people in the process.
While many of these incidents occur on the monkeys’ own accord, tourists are warned not to feed the wildlife. In fact, it is illegal to do so, with fines up to £4,000, or about $5,400.
Encounters like these may be partially attributed to human population growth and wildlife habitat destruction, which force animals into new areas in search of food and water. Increasing global temperatures have also caused shortages in resources for animals, contributing to human-wildlife encounters.
Wildlife can and will become dependent on human tourists for food, which is often processed and harmful to the animals’ health, and they will continue to approach humans, increasing the frequency of aggressive incidents like those seen in the TikTok clip.
In this case, the human-wildlife interaction was not the tourist’s fault. However, in many other cases, tourists have been known to disregard safe-distance boundaries or go off designated paths, threatening the safety of both humans and wildlife.
“He was trying so hard to be respectful and calm,” one commenter noted.
“He said where we going,” another user joked.
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