New app offers advice on macaques for tourists

The Helping Hand Trust will today launch a free app and website aimed at encouraging tourists to appreciate Gibraltar’s famous Barbary macaques in their natural environment.

The Barbary Macaque Mobile Walking Guide will guide tourists to three troops of monkeys - the ones living at Prince Philip’s Arch, Royal Anglian Way and Ape’s Den - offering information about their habitat and behaviour, as well as historical notes about the locations.

“The underlying goal is to help tourists understand how they should act around Gibraltar’s macaques, the do’s and don’ts, and appreciate them in their own, natural environment,” said Dr Eric Shaw, who heads the Helping Hand Trust and the Barbary macaque management team.

The app can be downloaded from the iTunes and Google Play stores and is free to install and run.

The information it delivers is available in English, Spanish and German and can be read or listened to in audio format.

The app is supported by a new website - www.barbarymacaque.com - setting out additional helpful advice and facts for tourists planning to visit the Upper Rock nature reserve.

At present the app offers guidance for one route guiding visitors to three troops. The plan, however, is to expand the range of walking routes and offer greater choice to tourists.

The apps were designed with assistance from locally-based PlayTech, which provides software to the gaming and financial services sectors.

The project also draws on support from a number of businesses and organisations involved in the Upper Rock and tourism sectors.