Are the Azrou Monkeys Ethical? A Guide to Morocco's Barbary Macaques

Seeing the Barbary macaques in the Azrou cedar forest can be ethical or harmful, and the difference is simple: do not feed them. The roadside scene — vendors selling bags of peanuts, monkeys climbing on cars, tourists posing for selfies — is quietly damaging an Endangered species. The ethical alternative is to watch them at a distance, ideally at dawn, in the Atlas cedar forest near Azrou and Ifrane, with no food, no touching, and no props. This guide explains the science behind that rule and exactly how to do it right.

I get asked a lot whether the 'monkey forest' near Azrou is a tourist trap or a real wildlife experience. The honest answer: it's both, depending entirely on how you do it. The animals are genuinely wild and genuinely worth seeing. The way most tourists interact with them is the problem.

Why shouldn't you feed the Barbary macaques?

Because feeding makes them sick, stressed, and less able to breed — this is measured, not opinion. A 2016 study in PLOS ONE (Maréchal et al.) compared macaques that were heavily fed by tourists with macaques that fed naturally. The fed group was heavier, showed elevated stress hormones and more hair loss, and was dramatically less healthy and less fertile. The numbers are stark:

On top of that, feeding draws the macaques close enough to people for disease to pass in both directions — research shows fed macaques spend long periods within aerosol range of tourists and keep interacting even when sick. Add the bites and scratches that send tourists to Moroccan clinics every year (almost always during feeding or selfies), and the 'fun' roadside encounter starts to look like what it is.

How endangered are the Barbary macaques?

The Barbary macaque (Macaca sylvanus) is Endangered on the IUCN Red List and listed on CITES Appendix I. It's the only macaque that lives outside Asia and the only primate native to North Africa. Numbers have fallen from more than 20,000 in the 1970s to an estimated 12,000–21,000 today across Morocco and Algeria, with about three-quarters in Morocco's Atlas and Rif mountains. Ifrane National Park's own ecotourism office reports the local population has dropped around 40% in forty years. An estimated 200 macaques are also smuggled into Europe each year for the illegal pet trade.

Where do you see them, and what is the cedar forest like?

The classic site is the Cèdre Gouraud forest near Azrou, in Ifrane National Park — 125,000 hectares of the Middle Atlas that holds roughly a quarter of the world's Barbary macaques and about a tenth of the world's Atlas cedar. It's about 89 km (1.5 hours) from Fes, at over 1,600 m, so it's cool and alpine — the nearby town of Ifrane is nicknamed 'the Switzerland of Morocco' for good reason. The macaques' natural diet is the forest itself: cedar and holm-oak leaves, seeds, acorns, bark, grass, lichens and the occasional insect — which is exactly why they don't need your peanuts.

How do you see the Azrou monkeys ethically?

Five rules. Don't feed them — not even 'just one'. Keep your distance — use a zoom lens, not proximity, for photos. Don't touch or pose with them — no selfies, no props. Go early — at dawn the troop forages naturally and the roadside crowd hasn't arrived. Move quietly and slowly — let them behave as if you weren't there. Done this way, you'll see grooming, foraging, play, and in spring the infants (born March–April) — far better photographs than a monkey grabbing a biscuit off a bonnet, and no harm done.

For more on the Middle Atlas and whether the region is worth your time, see our honest take on whether Ifrane is worth visiting. And if you'd like the ethical version organised — a dawn, naturalist-led observation with no feeding and a conservation contribution built in — that's exactly what our ethical Barbary macaque tour from Fes is for.