The #1 source for news about monkeys and apes

[Carrie McLaren <carrie AT stayfreemagazine.org>]

Calgary Herald

April 15, 2001 Sunday FINAL EDITION

SECTION: NEWS, Pg. A6

HEADLINE: India goes bananas over monkey business

BYLINE: Julian West

SOURCE: The Telegraph

DATELINE: DELHI

BODY:
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 $22 Cdn a
month, paid in bananas.

Monkeys have plagued Delhi's government offices and private houses for
several years, raiding fridges, snapping power lines and taking free bus
rides. Recently, 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. Visiting ambassadors have
been threatened by screeching primates swinging down from the trees. An
army major was hospitalized 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 vendors, power supplies
have been disabled and a man died last year when monkeys dropped a flower
pot on his head. Meanwhile, 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 ferocious when captured.

Two years ago, 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 they had enough trouble coping with their own monkey
problems.

South Block's monkeys have decamped to Delhi's main post office. The city's
residents, who are accustomed to losing large quantities of their mail
through pilfering, have resigned themselves to yet more monkey business.