Notes on Interactions between Monkeys and African Crowned Eagles in Taï National Park, Ivory Coast

African crowned eagles (Stephanoaetus coronatus) are widely recognised as the most important predator for arboreal primates throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Due to the difficulty of observing eagles, few interactions between monkeys and eagles have been documented [but see 1, 2], and even fewer successful attacks have been witnessed. Many of the reported interactions are from the perspective of a habituated monkey group; observers are alerted to the presence of the eagles by the alarm calls given within their monkey group. The majority of eagle encounters are not actual attacks and most of the observations of interactions are of eagles flying over or away from a group after an alarm call is given. Alarm calls can be used to signal to the predator that it has been detected [3], probably making an attack or a second attack less likely. Because of the nature of the observations of these interactions, we have very little evidence of the behavioural strategies used by eagles when approaching a monkey group. In the cases where attacks have been documented, the eagle was first detected after it had initiated the attack and little is known about the events immediately preceding it. Here I present