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["alex stevenson" <alexs19 AT hotmail.com>]

Hello Monkeywire (just a quick bit of monkey news from Japan),



National Treasure Becomes National Nuisance.

    A couple weeks ago there was a lovely television program about the 
Japanese Macaque Monkey (Snow Monkey). They are the monkeys with red faces 
that you often see covered with snow, or in hotsprings on postcards from 
Japan. Adorable aren't they? They may be, but the television program painted 
a different picture of them. They have become the nuisance of northern 
Japan. Among the worst of their crimes they are breaking into houses and 
helping themselves to the food in the kitchens. Town residents have been 
forced to change the locks on both their front doors and add them to their 
refrigerators, and not even that helps all of the time. "The monkeys think 
they are people," according to an old woman who experienced monkey trouble 
first hand.
   Of course the entire reason they are a problem at all is the snow 
monkeys are a national treasure of Japan, and thus they can't be shot and 
served with a cold beer at the local yakitori bar. How Japan will solve this 
problem is anyone's guess, but we're sure it won't be quite like other 
monkey solutions in the rest of the world. Our guess is Japan may become the 
front line of the robot - monkey war.

Naoko Kitabatake, and Alex Stevenson.
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