[monkeywire] Man-monkey conflict spreads through India
Carrie McLaren
carrie at stayfreemagazine.org
Sat Sep 18 08:26:06 EDT 2004
State In Monkey's Shadow
Without a containment plan, the man-monkey conflict spreads alarmingly
PRAMILA N. PHATARPHEKAR, CHANDER SUTA DOGRA
http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20040927&fname=Monkey+(F)&sid=1
Magazine | September 27, 2004
Purnima Verma always scans the outdoors carefully through her heavily
grilled front window before leaving her home in Ghaziabad, Uttar
Pradesh. She'll step out only if she doesn't see a rhesus monkey.
Even then it's only with a heavy stick. The 35-year-old homemaker
doesn't want a repeat of what happened in July, when a monkey attack
left her with a mangled arm, a scratched face and a ripped ear.
At least Verma survived. Two-month-old Kajal Pandey wasn't so lucky
this January. She was asleep at the Pandey home in Delhi's Lakshmi
Nagar when a monkey slipped in, bit her and gouged out her eye. When
her mother Kanchan swung a bucket at it, the creature smashed Kajal's
head on the floor. The hospital declared the infant dead on arrival.
The Pandeys soon moved out, terrified that monkeys would attack
Kajal's twin, Payal.
Another attack on August 29 claimed 60 victims. These weren't humans;
they were rhesus macaques stuffed into sacks and clubbed to death
before being dumped in the fields of Basana, Haryana. S.K. Dhar,
chief forest conservator, Haryana, says: "This is a highly sensitised
village; the motive was clearly communal mischief."
Unpleasant man-monkey faceoffs are becoming a terrifying part of
everyday life across India. The worst affected are northern states
like Delhi, UP, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, where the worship of
Hanuman and the feeding of rhesus macaques (considered his living
avatar) is widespread. Humans have actually begun to cage themselves
into houses and offices to escape the monkey menace. 'Simian vermin'
too are being captured and put into barred shelters.
Jammu and Kashmir (where the late music producer Gulshan Kumar sent
fruits by the truckload for the monkeys at Vaishno Devi temple),
Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Kerala are also struggling to cope with
aggressive monkeys that forage in troops up to 200 strong.
A monkey attack can lead to rabies and death. People in many areas
have changed their habits. "I can't feed my daughter on the balcony,
I've stopped making pickle, drying papad or clothes on my terrace,"
says Sunita Verma, a school teacher from north Delhi's Timarpur area.
Iqbal Malik specialises in the study of primates, a class to which
both man and monkey belong. She says India's rhesus macaque
population has jumped from 2 lakh in 1980 to 5 lakh now. Some 50-60
per cent of these live in urban areas, where abundant food at
temples, homes, markets and garbage dumps is leading to a rise in
their numbers.
Delhi alone has 5,000 marauding macaques, who've stormed the
corridors of power around Parliament, temples, residential areas and
hospitals. Institutions like the Air Force Bal Bharati School have
employed langurs (larger black-faced monkeys) to scare away macaques.
It isn't easy. Some determined macaques climbed all the way to the
17th floor of a high-rise apartment building in Gurgaon outside
Delhi. "Seeing mean red faces in the window was terrifying," says
Tanuja, a TV producer. Luckily her balcony was enclosed. Her
neighbour's wasn't and the simian troop duly raided the refrigerator.
Dinesh Sharma, officer in charge of rabies control, Municipal
Corporation of Delhi (MCD), says 1,603 people took anti-rabies
vaccines after monkey attacks in 2003 at MCD clinics and
dispensaries. That's more than a two-fold increase in monkey bites
from 671 in 2002. Since this excludes central government hospitals,
and private clinics and the richer New Delhi Municipal Corporation
area, the figure indicates just a part of the problem.
In the holy city of Vrindavan, residents have caged themselves into
grilled and barred houses. "The devout had been feeding monkeys here
for centuries," says wildlife biologist Rajat Bhargava, "But simian
aggression has reached alarming proportions.Besides demanding food,
macaques damage phone, electricity wires." In 1996, he and Malik
attempted a translocation of over 600 monkeys from Vrindavan to
habitats 50 km away".
But the threat continues, given that there are usually 10,000
visiting pilgrims who feed monkeys or present opportunities by
carrying food," he adds.
It's humans who must take the blame. Till a 1978 ban, India was the
world's largest rhesus macaque exporter (they were used for
biomedical research). A haphazard trapping of 'individuals' from
troops led to what Malik calls "chaotic fissioning" where monkeys
later formed single units for safety. This resulted in the subgroups
requiring more space.
Psychologically, they changed. "Suckling youngsters separated from
their mothers became depressed, while the mothers got more
aggressive," says Malik. And dwindling forest cover encouraged them
to move to towns, where abundant food would help them breed well.
Right now, the tourist haven of Shimla, under siege from 2,000
macaques, is trying to relocate the simians. A public interest
petition was filed in the high court asking that the Union
environment ministry direct the wildlife department to rid the state
of monkeys. The court directed the government to frame a
first-of-its-kind plan, following which around 700 macaques were
picked up from Shimla and translocated to jungles last week. Yet the
results have not been encouraging.
In 2002, when macaques were released in Haryana's Morni forest, they
preyed on the eggs of jungle fowl and khaleej pheasants. The same
thing happened in Keoladeo National Park in 2003, where they ate the
eggs of painted storks and resident birds. Since post-translocation
studies have not been carried out, other conflicts might have been
missed, adds Bhargava.
In Hanuman-worshipping north India, Tuesdays and Saturdays are bounty
days when macaques are fed. But smart as they are, monkeys can't read
calendars; for them anyone carrying food on any day is a potential
feeder. People resisting their hungry advances are fair game for
attack.
Meanwhile, militant political outfits like the Bajrang Dal, who
identify themselves with the Hanuman cult, are making a sacred cow
out of the monkey. Joining forces with them are sweet, snack and
fruit vendors, who profit from the feeding. As a result,
translocators get threatened with lines like: "Take away our monkeys
and we will release pigs in dargahs."
"These people should care for the monkeys and not create health and
living hazards," reacts a frustrated wildlife official.
No one seems to want new monkeys, holy or not, which makes
translocation hard. As petitions for monkey translocation pile up,
forest officers don't want them, nor zoos, nor small towns and
villages. Delhi only has a temporary shelter for 250 monkeys.
There is a dire need for a solution. Whatever form it ultimately
takes, as the most intelligent species on earth, Homo sapiens owes it
to the rest of the planet to find a humane solution to this primate
predicament.
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