Monkey business

International Herald Tribune, Straits Times 11 Nov 07

It took an unfortunate death to push Delhi authorities to remove troops of aggressive monkeys from the city centre

NEW DELHI - The civic authorities here had managed quite successfully to do very little about the city's soaring wild monkey population - until the capital's deputy mayor toppled from his terrace to his death as he tried to fend off a gang of the marauding animals.

Sawinder Singh Bajwa, 52, was reading a paper on his balcony on a Sunday morning late last month when a group of four monkeys appeared. As he brandished a stick to scare them away, he lost his balance and fell, his son said.

While publicly lamenting the tragic accident, the mayor's office fought off powerful criticism for its failure to remove the aggressive troops of monkeys that coexist uneasily with Delhi's residents.

The phenomenon is a side-effect of India's rapid urbanisation. As Delhi expands, with another half a million people settling in the city every year, the green areas in and around the capital, which for centuries have been the monkeys' habitat, get smaller. Their own territory encroached on, many monkeys uproot to settle in the city centre.

Particularly irritating for the Delhi authorities is the monkeys' attachment to some of the capital's most prestigious monuments.

Guards watching over Rashtrapati Bhavan, the stately red sandstone President's Palace, are there as much to fend off the hundreds of monkeys who swing from the parapets as to contend with human intruders.

Legal efforts to force the Delhi government to take action have for years been tinged with farce. In 2000, a private lawsuit was filed accusing the government of failing to take any action, and legal proceedings dragged on with little perceptible progress until January of this year, when the Delhi High Court summoned a number of senior Delhi officials to explain themselves.

Official embarrassment intensified when a newspaper reported that the city's only monkey catcher, Nand Lal, a man with two decades of experience, had resigned his post and returned to his village, fed up with being harassed by animal rights activists.

When a three-month court deadline to remove the entire population expired in June, a member of the enforcement committee asked for an extension, pointing out that the summer was a cruel time to capture the animals because so many of them were pregnant.

Those monkeys that were caught were held in specially constructed monkey prisons at the edge of the city, waiting for a deal to be negotiated with neighbouring states so that they could be released into forest areas far from the capital. But the nearby states refused to take Delhi's refugee monkey shipments, and the animals remained incarcerated, enraging wildlife protection agencies, until a disused mine area on the city fringes was declared a sanctuary.

The lawyer charged by the High Court with ensuring the monkeys' removal said recently that things were as bad as ever.

It took the unfortunate death of the deputy mayor to inject new vitality into the removal drive. Delhi's mayor, Aarti Mehra, said 'after the incident, the process has really speeded up'. Already, she said, 35 monkey catchers had been hired. Over the next few months, a total of 100 catchers would be working. She estimated, however, that there were between 20,000 and 25,000 still to be caught.

Wildlife activists stress that responsibility for the growing tension between man and monkey lies not so much with the animals as with Delhi's citizens. India's population growth and economic boom are causing the rapid erosion of wildlife habitats across the country. Just as monkeys near the capital are losing their natural homes to developers, so too are the tigers of Rajasthan and the elephants of Assam.

'Humans have completely taken over areas which once belonged to the animals. That's why we are seeing more attacks by tigers, leopards, monkeys and elephants,' said Ranjit Talwar, a conservationist. 'This is a man-made problem.'

IHT

Monkeys on rampage in Indian capital
Yahoo News 12 Nov 07;

Just weeks after the Indian capital's deputy mayor toppled to his death fending off a pack of monkeys, the animals have gone 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, media reports have said.

"There were about three or four monkeys involved," deputy police commissioner Jaspal Singh told AFP.

"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.

But the issue 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. As he waved a stick to scare them away, he tumbled over the edge, his family said.

In the latest incident in Delhi's Shastri Park area, residents reported the monkeys appeared late Saturday and rampaged for hours.

"I was talking to someone at my door at around 11 pm when a monkey appeared," said 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."

Estimates of the size of Delhi's monkey population range from 10,000 to over 20,000.

In 2001 residential districts petitioned courts to make Delhi "monkey-free."

And last May, federal lawmakers demanded protection from the simians.

But there has been little visible progress.

"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 set a 10-million-rupee (253,000 dollar) budget to capture the monkeys which are handed over to a shelter in a disused mine area on the city's outskirts. Neighbouring states have refused to release the monkeys into their forests.

Efforts to drive out the animals is complicated by the fact Hindus view them as a living link to Hanuman, the monkey god who symbolises strength.

Delhi's mayor has admitted authorities cannot cope with the violent animals.

"We've neither the expertise nor the infrastructure," said Mayor Aarti Mehra.

If they are caught, "we're under pressure to release them due to pressure from animal activists and from people due to religious reasons."

Kartick Satyanarayanan, head of India's Wildlife SOS, said the invasion of the animals' natural habitats by mushrooming populations was at the root of the problem. "Humans are taking all their space."

Thieving monkeys 'out of control' in northeast India
Channel NewsAsia 17 Nov 07

GUWAHATI, India: Troupes of monkeys are out of control in India's northeast, stealing mobile phones and breaking into homes to steal soft drinks from refrigerators, lawmakers in the region have complained.

"Monkeys are wreaking havoc in my constituency by taking away mobile phones, toothpastes, sipping coke after opening the refrigerators," Hiren Das told Assam state's assembly.

He said the primates were "even slapping women who try to chase them".

"It is a cause of serious concern in my area, with more than 1,000 such simians turning aggressive by the day," fumed Goneswar Das, another legislator representing Raha in eastern Assam.

Assam's wildlife minister, Rockybul Hussain, said the state government has formed a panel to study the problem.

Because of shrinking forest cover, monkeys have increasingly moved into cities elsewhere in India as well.

Last week, around two dozen people were hurt after monkeys rampaged through a New Delhi neighbourhood.

Last month, the deputy mayor of Delhi died when he fell from his balcony after being attacked by monkeys.

Efforts to drive out the animals are complicated by the fact that devout Hindus view them as an incarnation of Hanuman, the monkey god who symbolises strength. - AFP/ac

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