Lion-tailed macaques are found only in the western ghats of India. They were in the list of most endangered monkeys and apes till 2012. In that year the IUCN found that various state governments had taken conservation steps and the population had turned around. Now it is classified merely as endangered.
Our guide, Murugan, is full of information about the local wildlife. Whatever I can check independently is fairly correct. According to him there are three tribes of macaques in the locality. The largest has about 90 members, then there is another with about 35. The one which we saw is the smallest, with about 20.
A villager led The Family to where some members of this band were exploring a trash heap. They dug through it fairly systematically and found various discarded fruits and vegetables to eat. The Family shares trips with her phone. She approached less than a human body length to take photos. I was tense, but these macaques are so used to humans that they ignored her.
Man-monkey conflict usually arises due to such closeness. One sees evidence of this in cities, where monkeys have discovered high energy foods like potato wafers, biscuits and aerated drinks. I had seen such a conflict once when my niece, then five years old, would not let go of a bottle of Pepsi which a bigger langoor wanted. An undiplomatic incident was averted when she obeyed her mother’s instructions to let go.
Nothing like that happened here. The only danger we were in came when two male macaques started fighting, and forgot that a human was between them. The same villager shooed them away. The Family decided to tip him for saving her. Normally I don’t like to tip for normal human kindness. But maybe she was right in this case: when you set up an economics where the well-being of the macaques brings cash rewards to local villages, then it could lead to innovative non-zero sum solutions to possible future conflicts.
Don't hold your breath 