Kam Shan Country Park, also known as Golden Hill Country Park or Monkey Hill, is north of Kowloon City. This park is famous for its large population of macaque monkeys. There are trails to hike or jog the hill, but I was afraid of fainting from the humidity and being bitten by wild monkeys. Thus, I spent all my time there in the car at the parking lot.It was extremely humid that day and not a lot of monkeys were hanging around the parking lot as there was not a lot of shade. How many monkeys can you spy in this picture?We were there around noon and for the most part, the monkeys kept to themselves as there were no other cars in the parking lot and we did not intend to feed them.There were signs everywhere warning people against feeding the monkeys. This specific sign appealed to people's logic by telling them that nature can meet their own needs. The other signs threatened fines of HK$10,000. But when have signs stopped people from doing something?
There are a lot of reasons to not feed wild monkeys. They become too familiar with humans and start attacking hikers and stealing food directly from apartments and grocery stores (all of these things have already happened in this area). They also become too dependent on humans. When there are less human traffic at the park like the day we visited, the monkeys starve. But people keep feeding the monkeys because watching the monkeys eat is entertaining and they think the entire interaction is cute.
When we were about to leave, a taxi pulled into the parking lot with a tourist couple. They handed out a bunch of fruits including bananas and oranges. As you can see, the monkeys are not afraid to camp right on top of your car to eat.
Monkeys do not share food with monkeys from other groups. In the video, you can see an older monkey steal an orange from a baby monkey that was by itself.
