Dogs down, monkeys up in India

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2007:

 

 

Dogs down, monkeys up in India

 

BANGALORE, HYDERA-BAD--Faster up a tree or the side of a

building than a feral cat, biting more powerfully and often than any

street dog, able to leap over monkey-catchers at a single bound,

and usually able to outwit public officials, rhesus macaques are

taking over Indian cities.

The chief reason is the recent drastic decline in street dogs.

The ecological role of Indian street dogs is threefold. As

scavengers, street dogs consume edible refuse. As predators,

street dogs hunt the rats and mice who infest the refuse piles. In

addition, as territorial pack animals, street dogs chase other

scavengers and predators out of their habitat.

Monkeys and pigs, in particular, have traditionally been

controlled by the combination of dogs consuming the available food

supply and packs of dogs chasing them--although monkeys have been

known to befriend dogs, and dogs to adopt and nurse orphaned rhesus

macaques.

One dog is no match for a troupe of macaques or herd of pigs,

but several dogs usually prevail.

Now the Indian street ecology is abruptly changing. More

streets are paved, discouraging pigs, who prefer muddy habitats

where they can root and wallow. But as refuse collection has often

not improved, more food waste is left to scavenge.

Paved roads allow cars and trucks to go faster, posing a

greater threat to dogs, who forage in the streets, and not long ago

often napped in mid-intersection.

Beyond the vehicular threat to dogs, the federally

encouraged Animal Birth Control programs have markedly reduced dog

reproduction in many Indian cities. Panic-driven purges following

recent dog attacks have swept the streets of even the sterilized dogs

in some cities, notably Banglore and Hyderabad.

But the garbage remains, more abundant than ever, and

monkeys are quick to seize the opportunity, often taking arboreal

routes above the traffic that hits their canine rivals. Frequently

they detour into homes through open windows or balcony doorways.

The succession of street species was illustrated in April and

May 2007 in the Bangalore suburb of Yelahanka.

Just as the furor over fatal dog attacks on children in other

Bangalore suburbs on January 5 and March 1 began to settle, street

dogs reportedly either mauled or killed a child in Yelahanka.

What exactly happened is still unclear. According to New India

Press, the victim was a three-year-old, who was attacked on April

13, but two days earlier Bangalore activist Gopi Shankar posted to

the Bangalore Animals newsgroup, " We had a six year old boy die of

rabies yesterday at Yelahanka, about 20 kms north of Bangalore, in

an area which was not covered by ABC, or for that matter any sort of

dog management.

" According to some reports, " Shankar continued, " the boy

was bitten by a dog on March 25, and did not inform his parents,

who are quite poor. But nobody has found the rabid dog, nor is it

confirmed if the boy was indeed bitten by dogs.

" According to some local residents, " Shankar added, " the

area has had some dogs released by Bangalore municipal vans. These

dogs were caught from within the city limits. "

Yelahanka is among the areas where an Animal Help Ahmedabad

surgical team had already contracted to sterilize street dogs.

Before the team arrived, however, dogs were the targets of several

days of mob violence.

" It's monkey trouble in Yelahanka, " headlined The Hindu

three weeks later, on May 8, 2007. Correspondent Divya Gandhi

described a simian home invasion.

" About 20 monkeys ripped through every edible item in the

kitchen, " she wrote. " The resident, blood boiling, saw visions of

bumping them off with a shotgun. "

A parallel story had already developed quite predictably in

Chitradurga, where The Hindu on March 3, 2007 reported that the

city administration " has decided to cull at least 1,000 dogs in the

next four days. "

The spring dog killing, undertaken contrary to federal law,

is an annual exercise, The Hindu noted, mentioning that 600 dogs

were killed in 2006.

" Monkey menace in Chitradurga, " headlined The Hindu on April

29, 2007.

" After reports of at least six people being attacked by monkeys, "

The Hindu elaborated, " residents of a few localities here are living

in fear owing to increased monkey menace. Women and children, in

particular, are vulnerable victims.

" Forest official S. Neelakanthappa said the foray of monkeys

into human habitation in summer is common, " offering to " provide

experts to the civic body to catch monkeys, " The Hindu added.

The relationship between the annual dog culls and the monkey

incursions somehow eluded notice--and eluded notice likewise in

Tiruchi.

" Recent instances of poisoning of stray dogs in Tiruchi have

caused disgust among volunteers involved with the Animal Birth

Control and Rabies Elimination Project of the International Animal

Rescue, " wrote R. Krishnamoorthy on March 31, 2007. " Over the past

few years, the volunteers have sterilized as many as 2,400 dogs in

the city. "

On February 22 and March 1, 2007, R. Rajaram of The Hindu

reported Forest Department captures of 73 monkeys from three

different troupes in the vicinity, who " would be released in

Puliancholai reserve forest, " with little likelihood of staying

there, in view of the accessibility and attractions of the Tiruchi

suburbs.

The biggest and most obvious example of monkeys taking over

habitat left by dogs might have been in Hyderabad. Yet there too

hardly anyone seemed to notice.

The background, Blue Cross of India chair Chinny Krishna

explained to the Asian Animal Protection Network, is that, " The

Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad two years ago stopped the

successful ABC program carried out by the Blue Cross of Hyderabad and

People for Animals, saying they would do it themselves. Close to

20,000 dogs were caught in the last two years and less than 1,500

were fixed, as per municipal records. "

In other words, about 18,500 Hyderabad street dogs were

killed. Even more dogs were captured and massacred after a fatal

dog attack in an outlying suburb of Hyderabad on March 28, 2007.

Killing dogs is politically popular in Hyderabad--but with

the typical result.

" The civic administration might be winning accolades on

several fronts, but containing the monkey menace in the city is not

one of them, " noted T. Lalith Singh of The Hindu on May 8, 2007.

" Handicapped by lack of trained professionals to catch monkeys,

Hyderabad may enter into a contract with one private team that

managed to snare 1,529 monkeys in the last year. Civic officials

estimate the simian presence to be anywhere between 5,000 and 10,000. "

What will be done with the monkeys, if captured?

" A temporary facility with 45 cages to accommodate some 250

simians has been set up at Amberpet, " Singh wrote.

Pressure to kill street dogs and monkeys often comes,

throughout India, from organizations representing poor and

illiterate members of the so-called " scheduled castes. " Politicians

seeking the so-called " scheduled caste vote " frequently use community

upset over dog attacks as a pretext for asserting that Animal Birth

Control programs are a hobby of the rich, diverting funds from

helping the poor, putting dog catchers out of work, exposing the

poor to mauling and maimings, and chiefly benefiting veterinarians

and makers of anti-rabies vaccine.

Dog attacks and especially rabies cases have markedly

decreased wherever ABC has been practiced successfully, but the

allegations against ABC have gained political momentum, based on the

argument that street dogs threaten the rights of poor people. The

same argument is also advanced against monkeys.

Former Indian minister of animal welfare and People for

Animals founder Maneka Gandhi on May 1, 2007 testified to the Andrha

Pradesh State Human Rights Commission that " the monkey menace in

residential localities could be eliminated if people stop feeding

monkeys, " The Hindu summarized.

Mrs. Gandhi founded the ministry for animal welfare as a

project of her former portfolio as minister for social welfare and

empowerment, responsible for improving the lives of the poorest of

the poor, but her credentials and testimony failed to change the

outlook of the Human Rights Commission, which had already favored

purging street dogs and has extended that policy to monkeys.

As with street dogs, who are " the dog menace " to some, but

are community pets to others, street monkeys have human friends and

defenders, many of whom do feed them.

In one extreme case, in Rohtas, a Patna suburb, a man

named Dadan Singh " started off by feeding 45 monkeys, but now there

are 772, " he told Ramlala Singh and Prabhakar Kumar of CNN on April

21, 2007. " Feeding so many monkeys is not an easy task, " Singh

added. " But most households of the village contribute, " he said,

" and they do it willingly. "

Also as with street dogs, street monkeys can be helpful--when not

being nuisances. " Once I was surrounded by dacoits [bandits]. I

called out for the monkeys and they helped me, " Dadan Singh claimed.

" Since that day I decided to take care of the monkeys. "

But monkey-feeding, also like dog-feeding, is sometimes a

prelude to poisoning--as occurred in August 2006 at Kurvanoothupalam,

Tamil Nadu, where 14 monkeys who had been accused of crop-raiding

were found buried in an orchard.

Reports of mass monkey poisoning so far are relatively few,

but reports of rampaging monkeys in spring 2007 came from all parts

of India.

At Jorhat, in the extreme eastern part of the nation, a

member of a marauding troupe in early February 2007 reportedly seized

but later released a human infant.

In Nalgonda, far to the south, attorney Gajji Kurumulu in

mid-February filed a lawsuit alleging that 450 monkeys had created

havoc for more than a year due to civic indifference.

At Udupi, on the west coast, The Hindu reported in late

March 2007, monkeys attacked " nearly 30 persons. "

In Udhagamandalam, said The Hindu, Coonoor Citizens Forum

secretary M.P.G. Nambisan " expressed serious concern over the menace

caused by monkeys and stray dogs, " and even noted both the role of

haphazard refuse disposal and the ascendance of monkeys as a greater

threat than dogs.

Yet Nambisan too failed to recognize that purging dogs

amounts to inviting monkeys to feast. --Merritt Clifton

 

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

Telephone: 360-579-2505

Fax: 360-579-2575

E-mail: anmlpepl

Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

 

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