Monkey menace gives Jorhat sleepless nights

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Link: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070213/asp/guwahati/story_7385674.asp

 

Monkey menace gives Jorhat sleepless nights

PULLOCK DUTTA

 

Jorhat, Feb. 12: Monkeys here have developed a fancy for human

company, giving the latter sleepless nights.

 

Hordes of monkeys have laid seige to a cluster of villages on the

outskirts of this town and some other areas of the district, including

Majuli.

 

One of them almost killed a three-month-old infant at Hazarigaon near

here a few days ago when it snatched the baby boy from its mother. It

dropped the baby and fled when the woman raised a hue and cry.

 

Assistant conservator of forests Gunin Saikia said the forest

department receives countless calls everyday from distressed villagers

from all over the district seeking relief from the monkey menace.

 

Saikia said, " Booming population of rhesus macaque over the years in

several places of the district has become a headache for the forest

department. " Rhesus macaque is listed under Schedule II of the

Wildlife Protection Act.

 

According to Saikia, the problem started after a ban was imposed on

using monkeys for laboratory purposes. Previously, rhesus macaques

were used to conduct tests for human drugs.

 

Saikia said the biggest factor for the menace was that " monkeys have

adapted to living with human beings. " Some monkeys have even taken a

liking to toothpaste.

 

With the forest department having no solution to this problem, the

villagers are left at the mercy of the simians.

 

" We have to keep our doors and windows closed all the time or the

monkeys grab anything they can lay their hands on, " said Dwipen Gayan

of Borholla Napam village located along the Assam-Nagaland border here.

 

Villagers of Lahdoigarh have stopped cultivating vegetables in their

gardens altogether. " It is no use planting vegetables as it is

impossible to guard the garden all the time. The monkeys come

anytime, " said Gagan Gohain, who led a delegation from his village to

the forest office here to lodge a complaint about the monkeys today.

 

Saikia said the forest guards have been chasing the monkeys from one

village to another, but there is no end to the menace. " When we

receive complaints from one village, we chase the monkeys but the

group moves to another village only to return a few days later. "

 

He cautioned that unless a proper plan was worked out to check the

booming monkey population, there would be a problem more serious than

the man-elephant conflict. " Monkeys wills start entering towns and

cities very soon, " he added.

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