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"Get your stinkin' paws off me, you damn dirty ape!"
-Taylor,
from Planet of the Apes
Monkey Story No. 41
London Telegraph, August 29, 2010
The sun is setting over South Africa's oldest vineyard and the last of the wine-tasting tourists are climbing onto their buses. But one large family group has no intention of leaving and there is little the management can do about it.
Groot Constantia, in the heart of Cape Town's wine country, can deal with inebriated holidaymakers but it is invading baboons which have developed a taste for its grapes that the wine makers are struggling with.
Each day, dozens of Cape Baboons gather to strip the ancient vines the sauvignon blanc grapes are a particular favourite before heading into the mountains to sleep. A few, who sample fallen fruit that has fermented in the sun, pass out and don't make it home.
"They are not just eating our grapes, they are raiding our kitchens and ripping the thatch off the roofs. They are becoming increasingly bold and destructive," said Jean Naude, general manager at the vineyard, which is celebrating its 325th birthday this year. Guards banging sticks and waving plastic snakes have been deployed with only limited success, and not even a blast of a vuvuzela, the plastic horn made famous at the World Cup, seems to frighten them.
It is not just the vineyards in South Africa which are under siege, however, but also the exclusive neighbouring suburb of Constantia, home to famous residents including Earl Spencer, Wilbur Smith and Nelson Mandela.
Crisis meetings between animal welfare groups and traumatised locals are struggling to find a workable solution.
"Where there's a mountain, there's a baboon," said Justin O'Riain of the Baboon Research Unit at the University of Cape Town. "As we take up more and more of their land, the conflict increases."
The baboons lived in the mountains of Cape Town long before humans took up residence, but development has forced the unlikely neighbours into increasingly closer contact.
Before laws afforded baboons a protected status a decade ago, troublesome animals were regularly killed or maimed by home owners and farmers. Now around 20 full-time "baboon monitors" are employed to protect them and guide them away from residential areas. It has proved mission impossible. Last week, a 12 year old boy was left traumatised after confronting a troop who had broken into his family home.
Hearing noises from the kitchen, he went to investigate and found the beasts ransacking cupboards. When the child fled upstairs to find his babysitter, three males gave chase and surrounded him as he made a tearful phone call to his mother, while the animals pelted him with fruit.
"When he called me he was terrified. They had him surrounded," said the Constantia housewife, who did not wish to be identified.
Chickens, geese, peacocks and even a Great Dane dog have been killed in recent weeks by the marauding baboons - the males have huge and terrifying canine teeth. Roof tiles, electric fences, orchards and vegetables gardens have been trashed.
"Lunch parties in the garden are now just impossible," a homeowner complained. "It is so unrelaxing. Rather than chatting over our meal, we are looking over our shoulders and bolting the food as quickly as we can before it is stolen. We can't even leave a window open in summer. We are under siege."
In a concession to despairing residents, wildlife authorities have begun collaring baboons identified as "troublesome" and imposed a strict "three strikes" policy whereby animals which repeatedly break into homes are humanely destroyed.
Fourteen year-old William, a large male known officially as GOB03, who had terrorised the coastal suburb of Scarborough for as long as anyone can remember, was the first to fall foul of this controversial rule.
His death last month was greeted with outrage and jubilation in equal measure and dominated the letters pages of the local newspapers for weeks.
Meanwhile, For Sale signs are sprouting up in suburbs with baboon populations. Families which have lived in the same house for generations are giving up, moving away to get away from their animal tormentors.
Monkey Story No. 40
People's Daily Online, July 9, 2010
Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents are training monkeys to use weapons to attack American troops, according to a recent report by a British-based media agency.
Reporters from the media agency spotted and took photos of a few "monkey soldiers" holding AK-47 rifles and Bren light machine guns in the Waziristan tribal region near the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The report and photos have been widely spread by media agencies and Web sites across the world.
According to the report, American military experts call them "monkey terrorists."
As a form of cruel political means, wars are launched to meet political goals through conquest, devastation, assaults and other means.
In a sense, the emergence of "monkey soldiers" is the result of asymmetrical warfare. The United States launched the war in Afghanistan using the world's most advanced weapons such as highly-intelligent robots to detect bombs on roadsides and unmanned aerial vehicles to attack major Taliban targets. In response, the Taliban forces have tried any possible means and figured out a method to train monkeys as "replacement killers" against American troops.
Analysts believe that apart from using "monkey killers" to attack the American troops, the Taliban also sought to arouse Western animal protectionists to pressure their governments to withdraw troops from Afghanistan.
An American official responded that the Taliban forces have started training "monkey soldiers" after suffering heavy losses, implying that they have exhausted their tricks. Nevertheless, the Taliban believe that the emergence of "monkey soldiers" indicates that they have found smarter and more effective ways to cope with American troops.
Ironically, the initiators of "monkey soldiers" are the Americans. Between the 1960s and the 1970s, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) trained massive "monkey soldiers" in the Vietnam War and dispatched armed monkeys to dangerous jungles to launch assaults on Vietnamese soldiers. Today, the Taliban forces have given the American troops some of their own medicine.
When armed animals enter interpersonal wars, what kind of world will we face? This cannot but arouse our reflections and concerns.
Monkey Story No. 39
Daily Express, December 16, 2008
PERFORMING monkeys turned on their trainer - beating him senseless with his own stick.
They went ape when their cruel owner handed out a vicious beating to one of the trio as they rode mini bicycles in a street show.
While one twisted his ears, another pulled tufts of his hair out in handfuls and bit his neck in a market in Sizhou, eastern China.
When he dropped his cane, the third monkey snatched it up and began beating the trainer around the head until he broke the stick.
The man confessed: "They were once wild and these performances don't always come naturally to them. They may have built up some feelings of hatred towards me."
Police are investigating allegations of animal cruelty and may confiscate the monkeys, as reported in the Austrian Times.
Monkey Story No. 38
thelondonpaper 2008
ZOO managers have taken Brussels sprouts off the Christmas menu after the vegetable caused an attack of flatulence in their gorillas.
The staff at Chessington Zoo fed the giant apes on the seasonal favourite as they are filled with nutritional goodness. However, they hadn't reckoned with the gassy qualities of the tiny veggies.
Now the zoo has issued an apology after guests at the zoo expressed their horror at the potent smell that started emanating from the gorillas' enclosure.
Gorilla keeper Michael Rozzi said: "We feed the gorillas brussel sprouts during the winter because they are packed with vitamin C and have great nutritional benefits.
"Unfortunately, an embarrassing side effect is that it can cause bouts of flatulence in humans and animals alike.
"However, I don't think any of us were prepared for a smell that strong."
Monkey Story No. 37
Associated Press, October 21, 2007
NEW DELHI -- A senior government official died Sunday after falling from a balcony during an attack by wild monkeys at his home in the Indian capital, media reported.
New Delhi Deputy Mayor S.S. Bajwa was rushed to a hospital after the attack by the gang of Rhesus macaques, but quickly succumbed to head injuries sustained in his fall, the Press Trust of India news agency and The Times of India reported.
Many government buildings, temples and residential neighborhoods in New Delhi are overrun by Rhesus macaques which scare passers-by and occasionally bite or snatch food from unsuspecting visitors.
Last year, the Delhi High Court reprimanded city authorities for failing to stop the animals from terrifying residents and asked them to find a permanent solution to the monkey menace.
Part of the problem is that devout Hindus believe monkeys are manifestations of the monkey god Hanuman and feed them bananas and peanuts encouraging them to frequent public places.
Over the years, city authorities have employed monkey catchers who use langurs a larger and fiercer kind of monkey to scare or catch the macaques, but the problem persists.
Monkey Story No. 36
BBC News, August 23, 2007
Nachu, Central Kenya -- A troop of vervet monkeys is giving Kenyan villagers long days and sleepless nights, destroying crops and causing a food crisis.
Earlier this month, local MP Paul Muite urged the Kenyan Wildlife Service to help contain their aggressive behaviour.
But Mr Muite caused laughter when he told parliament that the monkeys had taken to harassing and mocking women in a village.
But this is exactly what the women in the village of Nachu, just south-west of Kikuyu, are complaining about.
They estimate there are close to 300 monkeys invading the farms at dawn. They eat the village's maize, potatoes, beans and other crops.
And because women are primarily responsible for the farms, they have borne the brunt of the problem, as they try to guard their crops.
They say the monkeys are more afraid of young men than women and children, and the bolder ones throw stones and chase the women from their farms.
Nachu's women have tried wearing their husbands' clothes in an attempt to trick the monkeys into thinking they are men - but this has failed, they say.
"When we come to chase the monkeys away, we are dressed in trousers and hats, so that we look like men," resident Lucy Njeri told the BBC News website
"But the monkeys can tell the difference and they don't run away from us and point at our breasts. They just ignore us and continue to steal the crops."
In addition to stealing their crops, the monkeys also make sexually explicit gestures at the women, they claim.
"The monkeys grab their breasts, and gesture at us while pointing at their private parts. We are afraid that they will sexually harass us," said Mrs Njeri.
The Kenyan Wildlife Service told the BBC that it was not unusual for monkeys to harass women and be less afraid of them than men, but they had not heard of monkeys in Kenya making sexually explicit gestures as a form of communication to humans.
The predominantly farming community is now having to receive famine relief food.
The residents report that the monkeys have killed livestock and guard dogs, which has also left the villagers living in fear, especially for the safety of their babies and children.
All the villagers' attempts to control the monkeys have failed - the monkeys evade traps, have lookouts to warn the others of impending attacks and snub poisoned food put out by the residents.
"The troop has scouts which keep a lookout from a vantage point, and when they see us coming, they give warning signals to the ones in the farms to get away," said another area resident, Jacinta Wandaga.
The town has been warned by the Kenya Wildlife Service not to harm or kill any of the monkeys, as it is a criminal offence.
Running out of options, residents are harvesting their crops early in an attempt to salvage what they can of this year's crop.
Unfortunately, this only invites the monkeys to break into their homes and steal the harvested crops out of their granaries.
Even the formation of a "monkey squad" to keep track of the monkeys' movements and keep them out has failed.
The area is simply too large for the few volunteers to cover, they say.
Some residents have lost hope and abandoned their homes and farms, but those who have stayed behind, like 80-year-old James Ndungu, are making a desperate plea for assistance.
"For God's sake, the government should take pity on us and move these monkeys away because we do not want to abandon our farms," he said.
"I beg you, please come and take these animals away from here so that we can farm in peace."
Monkey Story No. 35
AFP/Getty Images, January 24, 2006
Seoul, South Korea -- See monkeys skate.
Monkey Story No. 34
Spotlighting News, November, 2005
Los Angeles -- Sexy Socialite Paris Hilton was bitten by her own pet monkey Baby Luv, in Los Angeles on Saturday, while shopping for lingerie.
Hilton, 26, was just entering on the designer boutique Agent Provocateur, with the monkey on her shoulders, when the pet went crazy, biting Paris and clawing at her face. Fortunately, Paris managed to take her off her face and hooked Baby Luv on a leash.
Then, she attached the monkey to a cabinet so she could shop in peace. While shopping, Hilton spent more than $4000 on designer bras, panties and a kinky bullwhip, according to America's New York Post newspaper.
Monkey Story No. 33
Web India123, 5/25/05
Balasore -- Aping Hindu rituals to a T, a monkey appeared at an Orissa temple, prayed for an hour folding its hands in the traditional sign of respect, took prasad, put vermilion on its forehead - and then fled.
Looking at it as a miracle are residents of Junia village in Balasore district, who responded by worshipping it in turn and garlanding the simian before it ran away.
It all happened earlier this week Monday when the simian, who had never been seen in the area earlier, appeared at about 10 a.m. near a Shiva temple and offered flowers at the shrine.
It was the day that devotees were formally inaugurating the stone symbol that is seen to represent Lord Shiva.
Said Aniruddha Behera, a village resident: "The monkey folded his hands, observed silence, put vermilion on his forehead and also took the prasad from the devotees."
"When we saw the monkey joining us we were surprised. We did not try to drive it out and it continued praying for nearly an hour amid hundreds of devotees," Behera told IANS.
It stayed around till evening when it ran into the nearby forests.
"We have not seen any monkey around for the last two years. This is a miracle for us," Behera said.
Monkey Story No. 32
BBC News, 4/14/05
Tripura -- Namita, a middle-aged woman who lives in India's north-eastern Tripura state and is a government worker, describes Buru, the pet monkey, as her third child.
"Yes, I breastfeed him. He is my son," says Namita, caressing the monkey.
More than four years ago, her woodcutter husband found a dying baby monkey under a tree after a fierce storm.
He brought the animal home in Chandrapur village on the outskirts of the Udaipur town in Tripura's South District.
"The monkey fell ill after the storm , in which it lost its parents. I decided to bring him up with my daughters," says Namita.
Her daughters, Dipti and Tripiti, treat the monkey as a sibling.
"We tie rakhi (a sacred thread) on Buru's wrists during the Indian festival when sisters wish their brothers well," says Dipti, the elder of the two.
Namita and her husband manage to earn around $100 together every month and barely manage to make ends meet.
But that does not deter Namita from spending to bring up the monkey.
It is not uncommon for poor rural families in Tripura to keep pets.
But Namita is upset when a photographer accompanying me calls the monkey a pet.
"This is not a pet, this is my son. Please get that right," she insists.
"I did not have a son. God finally gave me one," says Namita, as she continued to breastfeed the monkey.
I ask her whether she has been breastfeeding Buru- who is around five years old- for too long.
"I will continue to breastfeed him as long as he wants it. He will always remain a little one for me," she says.
She says she also feeds her pet monkey "expensive cow milk" which she could not afford for her children.
Many Indian mothers pamper their sons and give them what is denied to daughters.
They believe the family is not complete without a son and crave for one. But it is rare for anyone to adopt a monkey.
Namita's neighbours find her behaviour with the monkey "somewhat abnormal".
"We keep pets but to treat a monkey as a human or as your own child is not normal," says Subal Paul of Chandrapur village.
Another neighbour Ramesh Sil says Namita is "overdoing her affection for the monkey".
Buru generally stays home but is often seen on the roof of neighbours' homes, stealing bananas.
The neighbours complain but Namita refuses to put Buru in chains.
"Our pets are in chains, but this monkey is far too pampered," says Meena Das, a relative.
But all this does not deter Buru's doting 'mother'. "I don't care what they say. Buru is my son," she says.
Monkey Story No. 31
AP, 4/18/05
Mesa, AZ -- The Mesa Police Department is looking to add some primal instinct to its SWAT team. And to do that, it's looking to a monkey.
"Everybody laughs about it until they really start thinking about it," said Mesa Officer Sean Truelove, who builds and operates tactical robots for the suburban Phoenix SWAT team. "It would change the way we do business."
Truelove is spearheading the department's request to purchase and train a capuchin monkey, considered the second smartest primate to the chimpanzee. The department is seeking about $100,000 in federal grant money to put the idea to use in Mesa SWAT operations.
The monkey, which costs $15,000, is what Truelove envisions as the ultimate SWAT reconnaissance tool.
Since 1979, capuchin monkeys have been trained to be companions for people who are quadriplegics by performing daily tasks, such as serving food, opening and closing doors, turning lights on and off, retrieving objects and brushing hair.
Truelove hopes the same training could prepare a monkey for special-ops intelligence.
Weighing only 3 to 8 pounds with tiny humanlike hands and puzzle-solving skills, Truelove said it could unlock doors, search buildings and find suicide victims on command. Dressed in a Kevlar vest, video camera and two-way radio, the small monkey would be able to get into places no officer or robot could go.
It has been a little over a year since Truelove filed a grant proposal with the U.S. Department of Defense under the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and he is still waiting for word.
If the grant goes through, Truelove plans on learning how to train the monkey himself and keeping the sociable monkey at home, just like a K-9 officer would. He projects that $85,000 in grant money would outfit the monkey with gear and pay for veterinarian care, food and habitat for three years.
Monkey Story No. 30
India Express, 3/24/05
LUDHIANA -- A TEAM of the Forest Department today went to village Sirthali near Khanna to catch the monkeys who have descended here. The team, which had seven men, had only one cage to catch more than 150 monkeys in the village.
Villagers say that when the team placed the cage at a site where more than 20 monkeys were roaming around, one got trapped inside the cage. Villagers say after some time, the sight near the cage astounded them all. After the monkey was trapped, two fat monkeys sat outside the cage, almost like security guards. They did not let any other monkey go inside, even though breads, biscuits and bananas were kept inside the cage to attract them, said a villager. Hence even though the cage was big enough to trap more than six monkeys, no other monkey could be trapped.
The team promised the villagers it would be back with more cages tomorrow. The visit of the team led to excitement in the village, and villagers were avidly suggesting ideas to them to catch the monkeys.
Yesterday, Direct Forest Officer Sunil Kumar had admitted that all the monkeys could not be caught in one go. He had specified that this would be a slow process, and that the monkeys would be left in the forest later.
Monkey Story No. 29
AP, 3/4/05
BAKERSFIELD, CA -- A couple's plans for a birthday party for their former pet chimpanzee turned tragic when two other chimps at an animal sanctuary escaped from their cage and attacked. The man was critically injured with massive wounds to his face, body and limbs, and the attacking animals were shot dead.
St. James and LaDonna Davis were at the Animal Haven Ranch in Caliente to celebrate the birthday of Moe, a 39-year-old chimpanzee who was taken from their suburban Los Angeles home in 1999 after biting off part of a woman's finger.
Moe was not involved in Thursday's attack, said Steve Martarano, a spokesman for the California Department of Fish and Game.
The couple had brought Moe a cake and were standing outside his cage when Buddy and Ollie, two of four chimpanzees in the adjoining cage, attacked St. James Davis, Martarano said. Officials have not determined how the chimps got out of their enclosure, he said.
LaDonna Davis, 64, suffered a bite wound to the hand while trying to help her 62-year-old husband, Martarano said.
The son-in-law of the sanctuary's owner killed the attacking animals, Martarano said.
"He saw what was happening and had one kind of weapon with him and then got another he felt would be more substantial and shot them," Martarano said. "He pretty much saved a life."
St. James Davis had severe facial injuries and would require extensive surgery in an attempt to reattach his nose, Dr. Maureen Martin of Kern Medical Center told KGET-TV of Bakersfield. His testicles and a foot also were severed, Kern County Sheriff's Cmdr. Hal Chealander told The Bakersfield Californian.
Davis was transported to Loma Linda University Medical Center, where he was undergoing surgery late Thursday, Martarano said.
Buddy, a 16-year-old male chimp, initiated the attack and after he was shot, Ollie, a 13-year-old male, grabbed the gravely injured man and dragged him down the road, authorities said.
"Everybody was trying to get the chimp off," Chealander said.
Two other chimps, females named Susie and Bones, also escaped from the cage they shared with Ollie and Buddy, prompting sheriff's deputies, animal control workers, and Fish and Game officials to launch a search.
The wayward pair were recovered by Animal Haven owner Virginia Brauer after five hours. Martarano said one chimp was two miles from the sanctuary, located 25 miles southeast of Bakersfield.
The Davises had waged an unsuccessful legal fight to bring Moe back to their West Covina home and visited him regularly at the sanctuary where he had been living since October. They brought the chimp from Africa decades ago after a poacher killed his mother.
Animal Haven Ranch has held state permits to shelter animals since 1985 and serves as a sanctuary for animals that have been confiscated or discovered lost, Martarano said.
It is allowed to house up to nine primates at one time and is home to one spider monkey and six chimpanzees, he said. The permits are held by Virginia and Ralph Brauer, whom neighbors described as responsible animal lovers.
"She's devoted her whole life to taking care of these chimpanzees," said Jeanne Miller, a family friend.
Monkey Story No. 28
News24.com, 11/11/04
SOUTH AFRICA -- Superstitious villagers are starting to accuse each other of witchcraft after a woman claimed she saw a monkey herd cattle out her yard.
"I was going to work just before dawn and saw the monkey under a tree with the cattle," said Maggy Lubisi of Sibukeng village in Nkomazi, south of Malelane in Mpumalanga.
"The gate to my yard was wide open, even though I had locked it the night before," she said.
When she called neighbours for help, the monkey disappeared into nearby bushes.
Lubisi claims the monkey has since returned to her house several times and plays on her roof between 02:00 and dawn.
"I've seen monkeys and this one's behaviour is questionable and very strange," she said.
Her community believes the monkey is a witch's relative, who is trying to find the witch.
Afraid of mob violence, Induna Makhundu Shongwe has urged the villagers to work with the local tribal authority to resolve the matter.
"Four houses were burned down after people were accused of witchcraft, and we cannot afford another incident," he said.
Spokesperson for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NSPCA) Kingston Siziba, said monkeys have similar mannerisms to humans, which frightens superstitious people.
"Our people need to be educated about animals and understand that animals cannot perform magic," he said.
He also warned that cruelty to animals was a criminal offence, saying people should not harm the monkey.
Monkey Story No. 27
Chicago Tribune, 9/30/04
PATIALA, India -- The thief threatened children with bricks and ripped the buttons off shirts. He stole tomatoes from one home and snatched bread from another. Down the street, he briefly fled with a differential-equations book and beat a calculator with his fist.
He was one bad monkey. And last week, he was sentenced to life in prison for his crimes. Now he is inmate No. 13 at the country's only known monkey jail, where very bad monkeys are sent to live out their remaining years.
"He used to eat our guavas," Bhagwanti Devi said. "He would throw stones and try to hit us. Until we gave him flat bread, he wouldn't leave."
This jail is Punjab state's answer to menacing monkeys in India, where killing monkeys is forbidden. Hindus consider monkeys sacred, living representatives of the monkey god Hanuman. Thousands of temples are dedicated to Hanuman, and many people feed monkeys in the hope of divine rewards.
Monkeys have invaded government ministries in New Delhi, ridden elevators and climbed along windowsills. Monkeys slapped students inside a girls' school in a south Bengal suburb. A gang of monkeys in the city of Chandigarh ripped up lawns, broke flowerpots and yanked sheets off beds.
Some monkeys, mostly loners, have bitten people, injuring and even killing small children.
"Monkeys are very furious," said Ujagar Singh, the Patiala district spokesman. "They are dangerous animals."
Officials have tried many tactics to fight the monkeys, which are mostly of the pink-faced rhesus variety. They have told people to stop feeding them. They have given them an herbal contraceptive mixed in with cashew nuts. Hundreds of troublesome monkeys have been sent to wildlife sanctuaries. Last fall, the Supreme Court even decreed that New Delhi should be monkey-free.
But nothing has really worked -- not the court order, not the loud music, not the patrols of government buildings by leashed larger primates called langurs.
The monkey jail in Patiala, north of New Delhi in Punjab state, is in a corner of the Motibagh Bir Zoological Park. In this vast country, someone else might have opened a monkey jail, but if so, officials do not know about it.
The Patiala jail is more like a single cell about 15 feet wide, 15 feet deep and 12 feet high, with bars, chain-link fencing and wire mesh. A sign in front says: "These monkeys have been caught from various cities of Punjab. They are notorious. Going near them is dangerous."
None of these monkeys killed anyone. They're all thieves and pests. The first inmate was arrested in 1996, in the village of Sanam, after biting people as they shopped in a vegetable market.
Other monkeys stole clothes from nursing students and purses from women in an education administration office. One monkey stalked a housing complex in the Jalandhar district, stealing kids' lunchboxes and opening up water tanks, where he drank the water, bathed and defecated. Two monkeys were picked up from the chief minister's house for loitering.
The monkeys are captured with trapping cages and tranquilizer guns. Jailers refer to them by where they were caught: Sanam Monkey or Jalandhar Monkey.
The jail is dark. It smells rank, like concentrated monkey. The walls are stained, and the floor is covered with peanut shells and black peas.
Ten monkeys live here now; the three newer ones are still in isolation cages. Some monkeys sit slumped against the wall, occasionally picking up a peanut. Others pace.
This place angers people such as Maneka Gandhi, an animal-rights activist who is also the daughter-in-law of former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
She said monkeys can be rehabilitated, taught to live in groups and eventually released into the forest.
"You can't treat them in the same way as humans, as bad and good," she said. "You can't just jail them."
Monkey Story No. 26
Ananova News, 9/27/04
NEW DELHI -- Students at a New Delhi school are living in terror of a monkey that is having a free run of the classrooms.
For the past fifteen days the animal has been disrupting lessons at the DTEA Senior Secondary School in Moti Bagh.
It is reported to have snatched a student's pen and chewed it for nearly an hour during a recent examination.
A Class VII student told the Hindustan Times : "Now it fearlessly enters the classrooms and even takes out lice from students' hair. It gets furious if a student runs away."
Fed up of the daily harassment students now say they want the animal immediately taken away from the school.
The paper reported head teacher Jayalakshmi Seth said: "We have complained to the police and civic authorities."
Monkey Story No. 25
The Times of India, 7/30/04
MUMBAI -- He's hiding in the neighbourhood badam tree. No, he's on the fifth-floor chhajja. Help! He's in the kitchen, nibbling a peach.
No, he's not the Scarlet Pimpernel. For the last week, the residents of Sheriar Baug near JJ Hospital haven't exactly been feeling or acting like shers.
An adult monkey who has made himself a tenant in this old residential society and who conducts guerrilla raids on their kitchens has reduced the residents to a mass of jitters.
Many of them have been sleeping with their windows tightly shut and eyes wide open in case he comes calling.
"Our windows are grilled but I still keep my windows closed. My husband tells me not to be crazy, that such a big-sized monkey can't slip through the grills, but I can't help it. We are all terrified," says Nahid Maklai, the first person to spot the monkey.
She walked into her bedroom and found him combing his hair in front of the mirror.
Maria Ghadiali is not as fortunate as her neighbours - her house is under renovation and the sliding windows have been removed.
She has spent the last week sitting in front of the open bedroom window armed with a long stick in case there is a visitation.
"My children are terrified," she says. Many hours of monkey vigil have made the residents alert to the signs.
Monkey Story No. 24
The Times of India, 7/25/04
LUCKNOW -- Sticks and stones are the two most sought-after things among the residents of Dalibagh Colony and Aliganj. Ever hounded by a battalion of monkeys, after all they provide some degree of confidence to them. The problem that was a simple nuisance a couple of months ago, has now turned into an ever-looming horror for them as the battalion now charges at the residents even inside their flats and very often inflict severe injury. Well, the scale may be different, but a majority of localities of the city are in the grip of simian terror. Aliganj, Vikasnagar, Mahanagar, Indiranagar, Gomtinagar, Alambagh, Chowk...the list could go further.
The panic stricken residents of Dalibagh Colony and Sector K in Aliganj have developed the habit of keeping sticks all the the time. "I cannot go on the rooftop to dry the clothes; the monkeys can attack any time of the day. They even scare off my dogs. We have to carry a stick or stone every time we move out of our house. Earlier they used to slip into our houses, but now they have started bitting us. This is horrible," says Yasmeen, 60, a resident of the colony, considered to be one of the posh localities in Lucknow.
Similar are the woes of Sector-K, Aliganj residents. "Earlier they used to destroyed our garden, tore our car cover...jump on the car roofs. Now they have started attacking," says Nisha Saxena, a local resident. "We cannot leave our children even in our lawn, let alone in the park," she rues. "This may be because of the widening of the roads where the trees are cut," explains Shishir Kumar who is one of the victims bitten by a simian and now undergoing treatment. The residents claim that they have been complaining about the menace to the local corporator. "But nothing happened," says CM Singh another resident whose wife is another victim. "The treatment is burning a hole in my pocket," he adds.
While forest department has to take care of the menace, the officials say that they can't do so because of lack of staff. "We can only appoint a person in a locality who can trap the monkeys and take care of them," says chief wild life warden Muhammad Ahsan.
Not only the forest department, but also some non-government organisation are also working in this regard. Vivek Sharma who runs one such organisation says that he receives a lot of complaints about the monkey menace through their help line. For this the LMC has also sanctioned a piece of land where he can keep the monkeys and other animals and take care of them. "People take monkeys as a reincarnation of 'Hanuman' and once they start feeding them, they feel at home and when that doesn't come by in the later stages, they start attacking people," he explains.
Monkey Story No. 23
IANS, 7/5/04
INDIA -- Villagers near a Himachal Pradesh town have threatened to block a highway if a monkey that has injured 25 people is not caught soon.
"For one month the monkey has been attacking people, particularly children," complained Mukesh Dhiman, president of the Nehru Youth Awareness Club in Una, a small town 220 km from here.
Most attacks have taken place on a road linking Bidarwal to Laluwal.
"Either the authorities should catch the monkey or we will bring traffic to a halt on the highway on Wednesday," newspapers quoted Dhiman as saying.
Monkey Story No. 22
Business Day, 7/5/04
Johannesburg -- SO YOU think living and working in Cape Town is a doddle, do you? A succession of late starts, early knock-offs, corporate get-togethers in the winelands and weekends with the family uninterrupted by subtle hints from the boss about work piling up at the office?
I'll concede the recent tendency to hold functions on wine farms can be pleasant, and we even seem to get less winter rain than Jo'burg these days, but there are downsides to living in the Cape too. Crime, for instance.
Not Gauteng-style hijackings, armed robberies and muggings, although those are increasingly frequent too.
I'm referring to housebreaking by our irascible cousins the baboons, a phenomenon spreading like wildfire, both in the suburbs on the urban fringe of the Peninsula and further along the southern Cape coast. Actually, wildfire is an apt analogy, since these areas are also the ones most vulnerable to bush fires. But the baboons are hogging the headlines at the moment, with villages such as Pringle Bay and Betty's Bay virtually under siege by aggressive troops intent on getting the free lunch to which they know they are constitutionally entitled.
Typical of Capetonians, you may say; that'll teach you to keep your windows closed. Except that some of the troops have learnt how to smash windows and lift sliding doors off their rails. One Pringle Bay resident's house has been broken into more than 70 times in the past six months.
Little wonder the incidence of monkey murder has rocketed.
So much so that residents of the Welcome Glen and Da Gama Park suburbs of Simon's Town have lodged a petition with the public protector demanding their right to a baboon-free environment. That may be stretching the institution's mandate a little, but one can sympathise with their desperation, even if the baboons were there first. If they could speak they would surely have come up with the phrase "affirmative procurement".
Fortunately, help is at hand in the form of baboon monitors, people who are paid to spend their days tracking problem troops up hill and down dale and throwing stones when their charges approach too close to human settlements. Killing two birds unemployment and the primate problem with one stone, so to speak.
So far, nobody has come up with a workable plan to exploit synergies inherent in combining the monitors' function with that of another uniquely Cape Town occupation Mountain Men.
These stoic souls' day at the office also entails hiking up mountainsides, but in this case the intention is to use the height advantage to keep a watchful eye on the suburbs below and direct private security vehicles to actual or potential crime scenes.
So, spare a thought for your Cape Town colleagues next time you're stuck on the Ben Schoeman. Your problems could be so much more, well, interesting.
Monkey Story No. 21
IANS, 4/22/04
INDIA -- Fleeing a group of marauding monkeys, a newly wed woman fell to her death at her home in this Bihar capital, police said.
Navjaut Kaur, 25, was drying clothes on the roof of her home when some monkeys attacked her. She ran to save herself, but fell.
The incident has scared women in the area, many of whom stay alone at home while their husbands are away at work.
Locals say the monkey population there has increased manifold, with the animals running amok on terraces and often attacking people and snatching away food.
The administration, however, has not done anything yet to help check the monkey terror.
Monkey Story No. 20
AP, 4/1/04
HONG KONG -- A Hong Kong woman said conservation officers chased a stray monkey into her home, where it went on a rampage that destroyed an expensive flat-screen television.
Now she's suing the government.
Cai Ai-lan told the Small Claims Tribunal officials spooked the monkey with nets while they were trying to catch it in September and it went on a minor rampage in her apartment, the South China Morning Post newspaper said.
Cai, 48, said the officials should have been trying to tranquilize the monkey instead. The Apple Daily newspaper said she's seeking the equivalent of about $5,000 Cdn to cover damage to the TV, which was knocked down and ruined.
Conservation officers said Thursday any damage to the television was not their fault.
Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department spokesman Albert Hui said the monkey chase had not yet started when it ran into Cai's apartment.
Hong Kong has hundreds of wild monkeys in remote parts of the Kowloon peninsula and they occasionally stray into urban areas and cause minor mayhem.
Regardless of how Cai's lawsuit is resolved, newspapers reported she replaced her flat-screen television with a bulkier conventional model.
"It is heavier, so if the monkey comes again, it's not easily overturned," Cai was quoted telling the Post.
Monkey Story No. 19
UPI, 3/24/04
PATNA, India -- A wild monkey is on the prowl chewing the ears of people in a cluster of villages in eastern India.
Police say the monkey has terrorized the people of the Saran district, injuring more than 20 residents in the past two weeks.
"The monkey attacks people to chew their ear. If it fails to do that, the monkey becomes angry and injures the people," Shriram Singh, a resident of Salempur village told Indo Asian News Service.
A majority of Hindus in India would not harm monkeys, since they are considered a symbol of the Hindu deity Hanuman.
Monkey Story No. 18
ABC News Online, 2/6/04
Police in the Colombian capital of Bogota say they have caught a monkey which had been trained to pick pockets.
The monkey was captured following complaints from locals in the south of the city who said it had stolen wallets, mobile phones and other valuables.
Colombian officials say after the creature targetted its victims it returned home with the stolen goods and was rewarded with bananas by its owner.
Bogota police say the monkey has now been taken to an animal rehabilitation centre.
Monkey Story No. 17
Associated Press, 5/9/03
London -- Give an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of typewriters, the theory goes, and they will eventually produce the works of Shakespeare.
Give six monkeys one computer for a month, and they will make a mess.
Researchers at Plymouth University in England reported this week that primates left alone with a computer attacked the machine and failed to produce a single word.
``They pressed a lot of S's,'' researcher Mike Phillips said Friday. ``Obviously, English isn't their first language.''
In a project intended more as performance art than scientific experiment, faculty and students in the university's media program left a computer in the monkey enclosure at Paignton Zoo in southwest England, home to six Sulawesi crested macaques.
Then, they waited.
"At first," said Phillips, ``the lead male got a stone and started bashing the hell out of it."
``Another thing they were interested in was in defecating and urinating all over the keyboard,'' added Phillips, who runs the university's Institute of Digital Arts and Technologies.
Eventually, monkeys Elmo, Gum, Heather, Holly, Mistletoe and Rowan produced five pages of text, composed primarily of the letter S. Later, the letters A, J, L and M crept in.
The notion that monkeys typing at random will eventually produce literature is often attributed to Thomas Huxley, a 19th-century scientist who supported Charles Darwin's theories of evolution. Mathematicians have also used it to illustrate concepts of chance.
The Plymouth experiment was funded by England's Arts Council and part of the Vivaria Project, which plans to install computers in zoos across Europe to study differences between animal and artificial life.
Phillips said the results showed that monkeys ``are not random generators. They're more complex than that.
``They were quite interested in the screen, and they saw that when they typed a letter, something happened. There was a level of intention there.''
Monkey Story No. 16
United Press International, 3/24/03
RABAT, Morocco -- A Moroccan publication accused the government Monday of providing unusual assistance to U.S. troops fighting in Iraq by offering them 2,000 monkeys trained in detonating land mines.
The weekly al-Usbu' al-Siyassi reported that Morocco offered the U.S. forces a large number of monkeys, some from Morocco's Atlas Mountains and others imported, to use them for detonating land mines planted by the Iraqis.
The publication quoted a highly-informed source as saying, "that is not a scientific illusion but a well-known military tactic."
Monkey Story No. 15
9/2/02
Thousands of people attended the funeral of a monkey revered as a divine incarnation of a Hindu god in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, police said yesterday. But animal rights activists said the animal, which collapsed on Saturday, died of starvation and exhaustion after it was trapped inside a temple for a month by over-zealous worshippers.
According to local police officials, 3,000 to 4,000 people were present when the monkey was cremated according to Hindu custom, during a ceremony organised by the temple committee. The animal had strayed into a temple dedicated to Hanuman - the Hindu monkey god - in Timmaganipalli village, some 400 kilometres south of the Andhra Pradesh capital Hyderabad.
When the villagers discovered the monkey sitting on the idol of Hanuman they thought it was a reincarnation of the god and refused to let it out of the temple. Hundreds of pilgrims poured in to seek blessings, often garlanding the monkey with flowers, besides making offerings of money and coconuts.
"We tried to regulate the traffic of pilgrims to ensure proper rest to the monkey but it had created quite a sensation that at least 300 to 400 people would come everyday to see it," N Kalidas, deputy superintendent of police told AFP.
Even when the monkey stopped eating, animal rights groups were not allowed to take it away.
"The monkey was quite old and both its hind legs were paralysed," Narendra Reddy secretary of animal rights group Karuna told AFP. "It clearly needed help and we wanted to have it shifted to a veterinary hospital but the villagers just refused to co-operate with us," he said.
A team of vets examined the monkey after the courts intervened last week.
Karuna had petitioned the Andhra Pradesh high court to rescue the monkey, which they claimed was being exploited by the priests of the temple to make money. The court passed a directive on Wednesday ordering the local police and administration to ensure the monkey was not harassed by pilgrims and given proper medical attention, but it died a few days later.
Monkey Story No. 14
Reuters, 3/31/02
HONG KONG -- There is too much monkey business in Hong Kong, and the government is determined to do something about it.
Packs of wild monkeys are invading parks and neighborhoods in greater numbers, aggressively begging for food and sometimes snatching bags from frightened passersby.
Occasionally, a brave one hitches a ride on a ferry across Hong Kong harbor to the busy central district.
Concerned the animals may pose a growing health hazard and nuisance, the government has begun testing a unique method to control their numbers.
It is implementing what's thought to be the world's first monkey birth control program.
Many animal rights activists say they are in favor of the plan as a humane alternative to trapping and killing problem populations of Hong Kong's long-tailed and macaque monkeys.
"We think that keeping a healthy population of monkeys in Hong Kong is very important," says Wong Che-lok, who is guiding the program for Hong Kong's Agriculture Fishing and Conservation Department.
"We hope that park visitors and monkeys can live together in harmony, and that's why we need to control the population growth of the macaques."
Wong said that monkey-catchers are trapping the animals in small numbers for now. They anesthetize them and inject an immunovaccine which sterilizes the males permanently, and makes the females infertile for up to five years.
Currently, several packs of the monkeys have been treated and released back into the wild under the pilot program. Wong says the government will begin a full scale program if the initial results prove effective in controlling the population.
Some estimates show the monkey population in Hong Kong growing as much as 10 percent a year, far faster than what is thought to be sustainable.
There were 600 monkeys around the territory in 1992 when the first comprehensive survey was done. The population has doubled since then, and at the current growth rate is expected to top 2,000 within the next five years.
Wong says that would be too high for a healthy population in the limited areas available and something needs to be done immediately to halt the growth.
Two types of monkeys are currently found in the territory; long-tailed and rhesus macaques. Neither is indigenous to Hong Kong, although rhesus monkeys are found naturally elsewhere in China.
The rhesus monkeys are thought to have been introduced to their current Kowloon range just before the First World War. They were released by engineers who believed the monkeys would help keep local reservoir water safe by eating plants ringing the shores that are toxic to humans, but delicious to the monkeys.
The long-tailed monkeys are far fewer in number and are believed to be descended from pets released by local residents in the 1950's.
In recent years, the population has become a bit of a nuisance. The macaques are a frequent sight around Kowloon where many people feed them in the parks. But the monkeys have come to rely on handouts, and can become aggressive toward people not willing to feed them.
The birth control program is thought to be the first of its kind in the world for a wild monkey population.
"What the government in Hong Kong is doing with this treatment is actually very progressive and we support it fully," says Chris Hanselman, executive director of Hong Kong's Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Stephanie Boyles, a wildlife biologist for U.S.-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said in an e-mail response that she hoped that other communities with monkey problems, such as Puerto Rico, could learn from Hong Kong's experience.
Officials also plan to change the monkey's behavior patterns.
They are passing out pamphlets urging people not to feed the animals, and are planting more food plants in the hills away from Hong Kong's urban sprawl to encourage the monkeys to learn to live on their own.
Monkey Story No. 13
Mainichi Daily News, 3/31/02
SETO, AICHI -- Two people were injured after being bitten by a monkey that escaped from a cage at the home of its keeper here, police said Sunday.
Since the monkey's owner had not obtained legally required permission to keep the animal, police are questioning him on suspicion of violating the prefectural ordinance on keeping animals.
The male Japanese monkey bit Harue Tamayama, 56, a housewife of Seto, on the right thigh Saturday evening. Her injuries are expected to take three weeks to heal. Shortly afterwards, the monkey bit Katsuzo Yamashita, 66, also a resident of Seto. He suffered only slight injuries.
Investigators found a large opening in the cage through which the 70-centimeter, 30-kilogram monkey made its escape. The fugitive was later captured by police. The owner's name, a 58-year-old construction company president of Seto, was not immediately known.
Monkey Story No. 12
From Drudge Report, 8/12/01
KUALA LUMPUR -- A Malaysian man who rented a trained monkey to pluck coconuts was killed when the macaque dropped a coconut on his head from a tree, a news report said Monday.
Mamat Kundur, 59, was killed instantly in the accident, which occurred Saturday at his coconut plantation in a village in northeastern Kelantan state.
The New Straits Times daily newspaper said Mamat had gone to his small plantation to gather the plucked coconuts when he was hit by the falling coconut.
He had earlier hired the monkey from its owner to pluck the coconuts. Malaysian villagers frequently capture macaques from nearby jungles and train them to pluck coconuts.
Monkey Story No. 11
From Reuters, 7/25/01
LONDON -- Staff at a Scottish safari park were shocked to discover the identity of a prankster who bombarded their mobile phones with mysterious calls -- a chimpanzee.
The Blair Drummond Safari Park in central Scotland has been inundated with visitors curious to see "Chippy," who stole a mobile phone and quickly learned to use it.
"He picked my pocket when I was cleaning out the cages and later that day I noticed my mobile phone was missing," park staff member Gary Gilmour told Reuters on Wednesday.
"Some of the wardens started getting mysterious phone calls the next morning...one worker heard the chimp's shrieks and that's when the penny dropped," he said.
Gilmour said 11-year-old Chippy, one of four chimpanzees at the park, dialed into the phone's stored numbers and started making random calls.
"He was a bit depressed when we took the phone away, but everybody comes in wanting to see him...I haven't been able to do my work," said the keeper.
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