TROUBLESOME MONKEYS AND MONKEY ATTACKS IN INDIA

TROUBLESOME HIGHWAY MONKEYS IN INDIA

In November 2004, the BBC reported: “Some weeks ago nearly 2,000 marauding monkeys were captured in two towns in the northern hill state of Himachal Pradesh and relocated to forests. Following the success of that operation, forest department officials have now decided to do the same along the 90km-long Kalka-Simla national highway and release them in the wild. [Source: Baldev Chauhan, BBC, November 19, 2004]

"Monkeys have become a nuisance for motorists, mostly tourists. They are also causing large-scale damage to crops along the winding road in Solan and Simla districts through which the highway runs," says state wildlife chief AK Gulati. Experts along with wildlife officials are expected to begin the operation shortly. "According to the latest count, some 2,035 monkeys reside along the Kalka-Simla highway. "Our effort will be to shift as many simians as we can as they are a traffic hazard and sometimes cause accidents," Mr Gulati said.

The move followed an order of the high court after complaints that the monkeys were becoming a menace. Officials say the monkeys attacked anyone carrying food, rummaged through dustbins and littered the place while people looked on helplessly. There have also been growing cases of monkey bites in the state capital, Simla, which is a popular tourist resort.

But the wildlife department's moves have invited the ire of animal lovers. "The method of capturing them in cages and keeping them locked for long periods before releasing them is highly crude and causes a lot of trauma to the animals," says Rajeshwar Singh Negi. "Even if relocation of monkeys helps get rid of them from towns, we have already seen that new troops have entered the town in recent weeks," Mr Negi told the BBC. "Relocation could also help spread diseases caused by monkeys from area to another," he said.

Some people believe that a more effective way of dealing with the menace would be to sterilise the monkeys instead of moving them from place to place. But wildlife officials are nervous about taking that step since such a large-scale sterilisation of monkeys has never been carried out so far. "The final decision regarding sterilisation of monkeys would be taken after an in-depth study of similar operations elsewhere," said Mr Gulati.

"So far we have not got any negative feedback about the relocation of the 1,900 monkeys. But the impact would be seen on a six-monthly census to be carried out next month," said the wildlife chief. The wildlife department also wants the central government to fund a project to check monkey menace in the entire state. The state has spent around 2.1 million rupees ($47,000) so far.

The first ever count of monkeys in Himachal Pradesh was undertaken in December last year. It revealed that the state has 378,860 monkeys. Langurs, the larger black-faced primates number 55,180 with females outnumbering males.

Monkeys on the Rampage In India

In December 1998, The Telegraph reported: “Several people were injured as a horde of monkeys stormed into Srinagar, the winter capital of Kashmir, and attacked anyone who tried to cross their path. Apparently driven by hunger from the nearby jungle, where temperatures have fallen to freezing point, the monkeys raided restaurants, hotels, fruit and tea shops, houses and government offices in search of food. Shrieking menacingly, they barged into an old royal palace and ransacked it and the adjoining state government offices. J N Sathu, Srinagar [Source: Electronic Telegraph Report of December 28, 1998

In March 1998, Ananova reported: “Indian monkeys are running riot and no-one will complain because of myths surrounding the animals. The town of Noida in Uttar Pradesh is under siege from monkeys who raid fridges, uproot gardens and attack hospitals, pets and people. However, due to the myths associated with the animals, no one wants to make a complaint, according to a local forest ranger. One incident in a hospital saw monkeys chase a patient and attendants out of a room. A security guard had to be called in to scare the monkeys out by banging a large stick on the floor. In another incident, the monkeys pulled a heavy lid off a water tank and let it fall on a car below, severely damaging the vehicle. Some people are said to feed the monkeys just to help keep them at bay, reports the Times of India. "The importance of monkeys in the Indian mythology makes people virtually invite them and offer them food. The monkeys here have almost taken free meals for granted," said forest ranger Bhoodev Panwar. Panwar claims the monkeys even send out scouts to check out possible raids and once they locate one, they bring several other monkeys along. [Source: Ananova, March 6, 2011]

Monkeys Raid Chandigarh Business District

In December 2004, TNN reported from Chandigarh: Monkeys “gathered and played havoc in Sector 10 for full four hours, even as the bewildered residents turned in vain to everybody, including the police, fire department and wildlife authorities. The simians lived up to their reputation as they went about ravaging the orchards and gardens and pulling out the roots and bulbs of ornamental flowers. The helpless old couples living in the sector were particularly terrified. Telephone cables of a couple of houses were also snapped in the mayhem. [Source: TNN, December 11, 2004]

Attacks by monkeys are not uncommon in this area, but Thursday's attack was unprecedented. Nihal Singh, talking about her ill septuagenarian husband (house number 590) said she was planning to take him to a doctor. "I came out and discovered these monkeys occupying positions all over our house. They were jumping over the roof and making loud thuds. I cannot move fast and thus I played loud music to chase them away, but to no avail. Then these monkeys became aggressive and spoiled our garden.They started throwing stuff towards us, beating and showing teeth in anger," she said.

With no other option left, she frantically dialled the Sector 11 police station. But the reply she got was "It is not our job. Call up fire brigade." So she dialled the fire brigade number and got the reply: "Old lady! Call the wildlife or forest officials." And so, Nihal Singh called up the forest and wildlife officials. But to her utter disappointment, they said, "Our vehicle has gone somewhere. We will send people to your place as soon as it comes back." She waited in vain for the elusive vehicle, but certainly not the monkeys. After ruining the neighbourhood and petrifying the old couples, the monkeys made a safe exit. "I thought they will come with shotguns and tranquillisers in no time, but I am amused they cannot even protect us from monkeys," she rued, adding that the monkeys tore to shreds all the clothes lying outside.

Another old man took out his shotgun to scare the monkeys, but was himself too scared to fire thinking that he might violate some law and get booked for the same. "Oh that was an invasion and the monkeys came in families. This is not the first such instance, but they are becoming more and more daring with each passing day.

”Vampire Monkeys” Attack Temple

In November 2004, AP reported: “Monkeys lurking at an ancient Hindu temple in India's northeast have attacked up to 300 children over three weeks, temple officials said. "They hide in trees and swoop on unsuspecting children loitering about in the temple premises or walking by, clawing them and even sucking a bit of blood," Bani Kumar Sharma, a priest at the Kamakhya temple in Assam state, told The Associated Press. The temple, one of the most famous in India, is located in Gauhati, Assam's capital. [Source: König Prüß, AP, November 2, 2004]

"I was returning home from school when a monkey suddenly pounced on me, scratched my head and hand and pushed me to the ground," said Jolly Sharma, a 6-year-old girl. At least 2,000 rhesus monkeys roam in and around the temple, but none had shown aggressive behavior in the past, the priest said.

While occasional attacks by monkeys are not uncommon at temples, the sudden surge in attacks at the Gauhati temple has experts perplexed. Some say the Gauhati monkeys may be turning violent because of shrinking living spaces, or because animals once kept as pets might not have been able to adjust to new lives around the temple."The loss of habitat due to increased human settlement in the hills around the temple and the release of monkeys kept confined at home ... could be among the reasons for some of the monkeys behaving in a weird manner," said Narayan Mahanta, a wildlife official in Gauhati.

Three monkeys were randomly tranquilized by wildlife officials over the weekend and have been taken to the Gauhati Zoo where they will be examined in search of clues to explain the changing behavior, Mahanta said.

Troublesome Urban Monkeys in Delhi

Monkeys run wild in Delhi. They make trouble by breaking into homes, stealing food from refrigerators, taking clothes off drying lines, damaging television antennas, making loud noises and destroying property. Sometimes they attack pedestrians. They like to break into offices at night and search through files for food. Monkey have even broken into the Presidential Palace and the defense ministry, destroying and stealing files. On his visit to the Amber Fort in Delhi, U.S. President Bill Clinton was ambushed by a bunch of monkeys. He discovered later they were attracted by his flower lei. "Once I deflowered they weren't interested in me," he said.

Estimates of Delhi's monkey population range from 10,000 to over 20,000. Monkeys can be found in residential buildings and government offices and bite around a dozen people every day. Conservationists say deforestation around Delhi has driven monkeys from their natural homes into the capital.

The police refuse to help, saying monkeys are not their responsibility. Monkeys are protected by the high status given them because of the association with Hanuman, the Hindu Monkey God. Some monkeys have been rounded up and relocated to forests near Delhi. An effort to drive the animals away with high frequency sounds and traps failed.

Julian West wrote in The Telegraph: “Monkeys have plagued Delhi's government offices and private houses for several years, raiding fridges, snapping power lines and taking free bus rides. Recently, though, the problem has become almost uncontrollable and several million rhesus monkeys swarm over the capital. At least 10,000 have taken up residence in South Block. The army chief and his officers, as well as senior civil servants at adjoining ministries, now sit in caged rooms after files containing top secret documents were found strewn in corridors and power cables to computers containing sensitive data were snapped. [Source: Julian West, The Telegraph, April 15, 2001]

Visiting ambassadors have been threatened by screeching primates swinging down from the trees. An army major was hospitalised for rabies injections after a female bit him, and staff at the foreign ministry contracted jaundice after a monkey drowned in the water tank. Elsewhere in Delhi, monkeys have stolen whisky from alcohol vendors, power supplies have been disabled and, last year, a man died when monkeys dropped a flower pot on his head.

Monkeys on the Rampage in Delhi

In November 2007, AFP reported: “Just weeks after the Indian capital's deputy mayor toppled to his death fighting off a pack of monkeys, the animals are back on the attack, sparking fresh concerns about the simian menace.One woman was seriously hurt and two dozen other people were given first aid after monkeys rampaged through a neighbourhood in east Delhi over the weekend. "There were about three or four monkeys involved," deputy police commissioner Jaspal Singh told AFP. [Source: AFP, November 12, 2007]

"Wildlife officials are trying to find them. As police we're not experts in dealing with monkeys. We can deal with mad bulls but monkeys are more difficult," he said. Along with an estimated 35,000 sacred cows and buffaloes that roam free in the capital, marauding monkeys have been longstanding pests.They routinely scamper through government offices, courts and even police stations and hospitals as well as terrorise neighbourhoods.

Trouble boiled over in late October when the city's deputy mayor, Sawinder Singh Bajwa, 52, fell to his death driving away monkeys from his home. He was on his balcony reading a newspaper when four monkeys appeared, his family said. As he waved a stick to scare them away, he tumbled over the edge and died in hospital from head injuries.

In the latest incident in Delhi's low-income Shastri Park area, residents reported the monkeys appeared and rampaged for hours. "I was talking to someone at my door at around 11 pm when a monkey appeared," Naseema, who goes by one name, told the Times of India. "As I moved inside, the monkey followed and sank its teeth in my baby's leg." Six more bites were reported Monday in Shastri Park, while in an upscale neighbourhood in central Delhi, a rogue monkey bounded into the residence of Priyanka Gandhi, daughter of ruling Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi, The Indian Express said. Animal control officers were deployed to chase the beasts away.

Monkey Control in Delhi

In 2001 residential districts petitioned courts to make Delhi "monkey-free."In 2003, the Delhi government declared all out war on the troublesome monkeys and the Supreme Court issued a decree to make the city monkey-free. Special patrols set up to drive away monkeys had their efforts compromised by Hanuman-loving residents who fed the animals bananas. In May 2007 federal lawmakers demanded protection.

Julian West wrote in The Telegraph: “Delhi's transport authorities hired a monkey-catcher to rid their buses of monkey passengers, but the scheme had only limited success because the animals are so ferocious when captured. In 1999 the government held a high-level meeting to address the problem and various schemes, such as setting up a special park for captured monkeys or neutering the animals, were mooted and rejected. An earlier plan to trap the pests and ship them to neighbouring states, broke down after many states complained that they had enough trouble coping with their own monkey problems. Exterminating the animals was not an option, because they are worshipped as incarnations of the monkey god, Hanuman. The traditional Indian way of coping with the problem - in which an apple is placed in a narrow-necked jar, which a monkey is clever enough to seize but not to let go of, thus finding its hand trapped - was clearly only viable for solitary intruders. [Source: Julian West, The Telegraph, April 15, 2001]

In November 2007, AFP reported: “"We're trying to catch them but the difficulties are a shortage of monkey catchers. We're not able to take full action at full speed," A.K. Singh, a senior municipal official, said. Delhi has a 10-million-rupee (253,000 dollar) budget to capture the common rhesus macaques which are handed over to a shelter in a disused mine area on the outskirts. Neighbouring states have refused to release the macaques into their forests because they say the "urban monkeys" terrorise the local monkeys and swipe food from villages.[Source: AFP, November 12, 2007]

Delhi's mayor has admitted authorities are fighting a losing battle. "We've neither the expertise nor the infrastructure," said Mayor Aarti Mehra. Once caught, "we're under pressure to release ... from animal activists and from people due to religious reasons." Kartick Satyanarayanan, head of India's Wildlife SOS, said the invasion of natural habitats by mushrooming populations was at the root of the problem."Humans are taking all their space."

Using Langurs to Control Rhesus Monkeys

Animal control officials often use langurs, which are bigger and fiercer monkeys, to scare away the smaller macaques or drive them into cages. Julian West wrote in The Telegraph: “The Indian government has put several large monkeys on its payroll in a last-ditch attempt to scare away thousands of smaller rhesus monkeys that have been attacking New Delhi's civil servants, sabotaging hotlines and stealing state secrets. The fearsome-looking langur monkeys now patrol South Block, the magnificent red sandstone complex that houses the defence, external affairs and finance ministries - as well as the army headquarters and Delhi's main hospital - snarling menacingly at intruders. Each receives a salary of 600 rupees (£10) a month, paid in bananas. [Source: Julian West, The Telegraph, April 15, 2001]

“The staff at President's House, Lutyens's splendid monument to the raj which adjoins South Block, devised the novel plan of using langur patrols after monkeys were found peering into President Narayan's private quarters and romping over his verandah. The langurs, which are extremely ferocious and attack other monkeys on sight, make their rounds each morning before the civil servants arrive with their tempting tiffin-carriers, or lunch-boxes. However, as temporary employees, unlike the horses, dogs and mules employed by the government, they have not been given the customary Indian civil service numbers. Unfortunately, though, South Block's cheeky monkeys have decamped to New Delhi's main post office. The city's residents, who are already accustomed to losing large quantities of their mail through pilfering, have resigned themselves to yet more monkey business.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: Animal Diversity Web animaldiversity.org ; National Geographic, Live Science, Natural History magazine, David Attenborough books, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Discover magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, Wikipedia, The Guardian, Top Secret Animal Attack Files website and various books and other publications.

Last updated December 2024