Hordes of Monkeys Lay Seige To Indian City

Hordes of Monkeys Lay Seige To Indian City

www.telegraphindia.com

May 8: Monkeys are not a source of amusement any more, at least not for the residents of Kokrajhar town and its adjoining areas.

Hordes of monkeys have laid siege to Kokrajhar town, giving people in most localities sleepless nights.

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According to the story, a three year old in the heart of the town was critically injured by a monkey. A pack of monkeys bit a man and two children, and are vandalizing people's property and pets. Children are being attacked on their way to and from school, and forest officials have received "innumerable complaints regarding the monkey menace".

The monkeys besieging Kokrajhar are the endangered goldden langur, one of the rarest primates on earth, and is sacred to many Himalayan peoples. In other words, they cannot be killed. At best, forestry officials have claimed a plan to tranquilize the monkeys and deposit them deeper into the forests, but as of yet have done nothing.

In early 2006, Delhi's High Court directed a ban on maurading monkeys, but found difficulty when at least one monkey catcher suffered a 72-stitch mauling. They've even been declared a security threat, to the point where a cabinet minister could not enter his office for months, because the monkeys would not let anyone enter.

Previous monkey attacks in the area back in 2001 were found to be false claims by "anti-national" forces to spark violence in the Capital. The recent surge in monkey attacks suggest this finding may have been in haste.

So what does it mean? Are the monkeys reacting to a change in the global climate, perhaps more sensitive to it than humans at the moment? Or is it merely the rapid industrial growth of India, which saw a 10-year high of more than 12%. As more of India's natural habitat is cut down for industry and residential areas, more and more monkeys are moving into human areas, challenging for territory in the only way they know how.

Killing the monkeys is currently out of the question. Per the Indian Wildlife Protection Act of 1972, it is illegal to kill or possess any animal, its skin or body parts. This leaves little to no recourse for the Indians in how to deal with the overpopulation of monkeys, their attacks, thefts, and challenge to territory. If such sieges by hordes of monkeys continue, we might very well see this Act overturned by the Delhi High Court in the near future.

www.telegraphindia.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

I don't trust monkeys. Monkeys think they're so cool. Swingin' on vines, eatin' bananas, pickin' lice off of each other and stuff.
I hate monkeys..............


All kidding aside, this is a pretty bad problem. Children getting hurt, maybe killed. Do these monkeys eat meat or are they strictly herbavores? Is it possible that these monkeys could develop a taste for human flesh?
Almost sounds like a B grade sci-fi flick - "Attack Of The Man Eating Monkeys!".
I don't see how that law CANNOT be overturned.

my plan is proceeding perfectly

Just monkey business...

To no one's surprise, I'm on the side of my simian brothers of the Orient on this one... It's high time that we start taking back what was ours. When you really think about it, the monkeys and apes were "here" first, so that make the the rest of you "illegal aliens."



General Thade would be proud.

Wow, reminds me of Planet of the Apes! Pretty soon they'll be toting guns and locking big breasted women dressed in skimpy fur outfits in cages! Oh no! We must put an end to this before they take over the world!

On a more serious note, if this is such a problem, why haven't they done what they said they were going to do and tranquilize them? If this is such a danger to their children, wouldn't they be rushing to their aid?

It appears the Golden Langur is an herbivore. I suspect the attacks on humans are not a matter of biting them for food, but rather they see the humans as a competing tribe for the scant natural resources (food and water) that are available. Monkey tribes constantly war with one another over territory and food. Give 'em a fig tree, and it becomes Battle Royale. Sometimes, though, monkeys will capitulate and join another tribe. In fact, "heritic monkeys" as they are known, are vital to the variance of monkey bloodlines over time (lest they end up deformed in much the same way human inbreeding results in it).

Perhaps they are hoping to either raid and drive off the humans, or be "accepted and assimilated" into the "human tribe"? Are they attempting to be a pack of heretic monkeys?

They don't have guns? If it would happen in the US, the monkeys would be dead in a matter of minutes. Another reason to keep and bear arms... To stop planet of the apes type invasion

I've gotta agree with you Vitchilo - I just can't bear the thought of being put in a skimpy fur outfit. I'd probably get death threats from PITA for wearing fur. I'd be pretty defenseless in a cage....

Libra - the heritic monkey is an interesting topic. I've never heard of them before. So you're saying that they want to breed with humans so as not to do too much inbreeding? Oh that would be interesting. Huh, wonder if anybody's tried that before??

Ok, ok, I'll stop goofing off....it's Friday and sunny - just in a good mood.

I'm sorry, but that has to be the G-D funniest title I've read in a long time!!!

I keep seeing monkeys with hard hats and mortars.
..........Laying siege, that's just too much!

Good, the "Day of the Animals" scenario is finally taking effect.What next? What next? Things are getting stranger and stranger.

If it is, in fact, a biological response from the monkeys, and the whole tribe has become "a heretic monkey", then that could be bad news for the golden langur. It would effectively mean that they viewed mankind as their conquering tribe, and were attempting to simply assimilate into the human tribes. If this is the case, tranquilizing the monkeys and depositing them far off in the forest isn't going to work. The heretic instinct is so strong that monkeys will suffer through weeks of beatings to the point of unconsciousness to join new tribes.

That would, in their mind, put humans in charge of the breeding rights, as the monkeys would wait for the tribal alpha to decide his pick of the mates. Unless there's some really sick people in Kokrajhar, that isn't going to happen, and they'll either die out due to lack of breeding, or attack to establish their own alpha so that breeding can be re-established.

Alternately, if the monkeys are challenging for territory, it's effectively a war on mankind already in that city, and since the human "tribe" will not fight back, the monkeys are winning, and the humans are merely tolerated within the monkeys' new territory.

Either way, it looks really bad for the near future in Kokrajhar.