Abstract: The relationship between tourists and monkeys was increasingly closed. To investigate the behavioral responses of the rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) to tourists in the Qixing Park, Guilin, all-occurrence sampling is used to collect data on macaque-human interactions in August, 2018. Results indicated that the interactions between the rhesus macaques and tourists differed in macaques’ sex/age groups, showing that the interaction initiated by adult males (42.3%±11.6%) was the most common, followed by the immature individuals (30.7%±7.4%), the adult females (16.8%±5.7%), and the adult females with infants (10.1%±3.6%). Moreover, the most frequently occurred interaction of macaques was the Friendly behavior (AGⅣ) (66.2%±8.5%), followed by the Antagonistic behaviors (AGⅡ) (20.2%±3.4%), the Affiliated behaviors (AGⅢ) (9.1%±1.8%), and the Aggressive behaviors (AGⅠ) (4.6%±1.3%). The interactions between tourists and the macaques varied in accordance with tourists’ sex/age. Adult men (30.6%±8.5%) were recorded with the highest proportions in the macaque-human interactions, followed by the underage men (19.7%±4.8%), the underage women (18.5%±5.0%), the adult women (18.3%±6.7%), the elder men (7.9%±2.0%), and the elder women (5.1%±1.4%). The interactions initiated by the tourists included offering foods (51.4%±21.0%), photographing (26.1%±8.7%), adjacent behaviors (11.2%±2.9%), approaching (7.8%±1.7%), shouting (2.2%±0.6%), and clapping (1.4%±0.3%). The current study suggested thatappropriate intervention should be focusedon the management of the adult male macaques in the Qixing Park of Guilin, especially in the peak period. Tourists should follow the rules and reduce offering foods to the macaques. Manageral staff should pay special attention to the behavior of the adult males. Meanwhile, it is essential to enhance safety awareness of tourists to sustain development of animal resource tourism.

Key words: rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta), tourists, interactions, behavioral responses, Qixing Park, Guilin, China