Human disturbance of habitat has important consequences for the demography, the morbidity, the behavior, and ultimately the
survival of non-human primates. This paper is an effort to define, qualitatively, the potential influence of humans on monkey
habitats and behavior in South Asia. Four variables are proposed and scored on a fourpoint scale. These variables can be used
in comparisons within and between species. The four variables are description of the home range, level of harassment of the
animals, habituation of the animals to humans, and the presence of predators. These measures are intentionally simple and
conventional so that information may be retrieved from earlier field studies, and sites scored retrospectively. Methods for
some continuous numerical measures of human influence are proposed for future studies.
KEY WORDS South Asian primates - habitat disturbance - field methodology