Across India, in the months leading up to the harvest season, farmers battle various species of monkeys – the rhesus macaque in the north, the bonnet macaque in the south, the Assamese macaque in the northeast and many species of grey langurs across the subcontinent. The states that are the most affected are perhaps Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
This year, the Himachal Pradesh government plans to spend Rs 12 crore to control the state monkey population, according to report in Down to Earth. The article chronicled the problem faced by states across the country.
This is not a big amount compared to what the state loses each year to wild animals, including monkeys: Rs 400 to 500 crore. The loss to farmers caused by monkeys between 2007 and 2012 averaged Rs 440 crore a year, estimates OP Bhuraita, convenor of the farmers’ group, Kheti Bachao Andolan, in the Down to Earth article.
The number of rhesus macaque monkeys in the state increased from 61,000 in 1990 to 317,000 in 2004, while the number of farmers who are now affected by them number 900,000, the state’s wildlife department estimated, according to Down to Earth.
Many conflicts
While wild macaques are a problem for farmers, in cities they are often pampered, probably because Indians see monkeys as the embodiment of Hanuman. In cities such as Shimla, especially near temples and other tourist sites, many visitors feed monkeys.
Habituated to being fed, these simians demand food from everybody. When someone hesitates to oblige, they often snatch, scratch, and bite the person. Had people not fed the monkeys in the first place, such a conflict would not have arisen.
Monkeys can cause other types of conflict by raiding kitchens, breaking chimneys and bursting water pipes, all of which have little to do with humans feeding them. In Varanasi, monkeys chewed up fibre-optic cables meant to turn the prime minister’s constituency into a wi-fi-enabled city.
Some activists identify the loss of forest habitat as the primary cause of conflict, but this is not accurate. Primatologists describe rhesus and bonnet macaques as being “commensal” with humans, meaning that they benefit from people without affecting them. Perhaps the term was first used when these primates sporadically visited farmlands, snatched a mouthful here and there, and disappeared. But given the scale of loss today, ‘commensalism’ is difficult to support.
In forests, monkey numbers are constrained by the flowering and fruiting cycles of trees. But in the agricultural landscape, crops and horticultural produce are plentiful and widespread. As a result, monkeys gravitate towards human settlements. Both Thomas Jerdon and Stanley Prater, who wrote books on Indian mammals in 1874 and 1948 respectively, refer to villages as being the habitat of rhesus and bonnet macaques.
State response
When monkeys cause huge problems for humans, the state often relocates the animals by trapping troops of them from troubled areas and releasing them in villages and forests far away. But this merely transfers rather than solves the problem: the new locations often become fresh sources of conflict.
The article in Down to Earth, for instance, highlights the problems faced by Chaukha village, where the state released monkeys caught in Shimla and Mandi. At 2,000 metres above sea level, the village and its environs were too high for macaques to willingly colonise. Now, the village is forced to deal with the various problems caused by monkeys.
While cities dump their problem monkeys on unlucky villages, villagers in turn dump their monkeys near forests. Communities who live near forests are far down the social hierarchy, and ultimately suffer the consequences. Monkeys also pay with their lives because of these ill-advised transfers.
Besides undertaking relocation, Himachal Pradesh invested Rs 6.4 crore in 2007 to set up centres for sterilising monkeys, according to the Down to Earth article. The state now has the capacity to perform 54,000 sterilisations a year, or about 430,000 in eight years. But it has sterilised only 96,500 monkeys so far, or an average of 12,000 monkeys annually, well below the capacity. This low rate will not make a dent in the monkey population as thousands continue to breed.
In rare cases, states cull monkeys. In 2007, Himachal Pradesh, for instance, killed 480 monkeys in 200 of the worst-hit villages. But relief was temporary. Within two years, monkeys had re-colonised the areas.
Despite all these measures, Himachal Pradesh estimated that it had 226,000 macaques during a 2013 census. Although this is a drop of 90,000 from the 2004 census, or a 28% decrease, there is no sign of the conflict abating.
Farmers have attempted to deal with the problem themselves by guarding crops and using dogs to chase away primates. When the problem is so severe that they cannot save their crops for several seasons in a row, they often abandon farming altogether, sell their lands in distress sales, and in a few cases, switch to inedible crops.
Driven by desperation, they’ve become vociferous through groups such as Himachal Gyan Vigyan Samiti and Kheti Bachao Andolan.
Many consequences
While Himachal Pradesh’s unscientific response to resolving this conflict has been largely futile, other states have done little to give relief to farmers. In the roughly five decades from 1961-1963 to 2014, 90% of the bonnet macaque population in coastal Karnataka was wiped out, while about 48% of temple and tourist spots were also cleaned of macaques, according to estimates of primatologists, led by Mewa Singh from the University of Mysore.
They said the decline in numbers was a result of increasing conflict with people, who shot them dead or trapped and relocated the monkeys elsewhere.
In response to a public interest litigation filed in 2003 by Kanwar Rattanjit Singh in the Himachal Pradesh high court, the ministry of environment and forests drafted a plan in 2004 to solve the problem, called "Action Plan for Control of Stray Animal Menace (Monkeys, Stray Dogs, Stray Cattle & Pigs)."
In the same year, in response to a separate PIL filed in the Supreme Court, the ministry presented an identical document titled, "National Action Plan for Controlling Stray Animal Menace (monkeys, dogs, cattle and pigs)".
Appalled by the ministry’s insensitive clubbing together of domestic, feral and wild animals, a group of activists and experts, including four primatologists, two wildlife veterinarians and this writer, came up with an alternative plan.
The plan recognises 27 species of macaques and langurs. Many of these are supposedly in conflict with humans, but they are not numerous or widespread. For instance, although residents report conflicts with the Himalayan grey langur, it is a critically endangered species. Random relocation, sterilisation, and culling could cause it to become extinct. The methods used to manage conflict therefore have to be tailored to each species’ conservation status, and all species of monkeys cannot be treated the same way.
We sent copies of this plan to the environment ministry, and Sujoy Chaudhuri, one of the authors, made presentations to officials. But they did not appear to be interested in the finer points of balancing management with conservation. A decade later, we are no closer to managing the problem.
Had the authorities dealt with the issue when it was still manageable, it would not have blown up into the serious problem it has become in some northern states.
This year, the Himachal Pradesh government plans to spend Rs 12 crore to control the state monkey population, according to report in Down to Earth. The article chronicled the problem faced by states across the country.
This is not a big amount compared to what the state loses each year to wild animals, including monkeys: Rs 400 to 500 crore. The loss to farmers caused by monkeys between 2007 and 2012 averaged Rs 440 crore a year, estimates OP Bhuraita, convenor of the farmers’ group, Kheti Bachao Andolan, in the Down to Earth article.
The number of rhesus macaque monkeys in the state increased from 61,000 in 1990 to 317,000 in 2004, while the number of farmers who are now affected by them number 900,000, the state’s wildlife department estimated, according to Down to Earth.
Many conflicts
While wild macaques are a problem for farmers, in cities they are often pampered, probably because Indians see monkeys as the embodiment of Hanuman. In cities such as Shimla, especially near temples and other tourist sites, many visitors feed monkeys.
Habituated to being fed, these simians demand food from everybody. When someone hesitates to oblige, they often snatch, scratch, and bite the person. Had people not fed the monkeys in the first place, such a conflict would not have arisen.
Monkeys can cause other types of conflict by raiding kitchens, breaking chimneys and bursting water pipes, all of which have little to do with humans feeding them. In Varanasi, monkeys chewed up fibre-optic cables meant to turn the prime minister’s constituency into a wi-fi-enabled city.
Some activists identify the loss of forest habitat as the primary cause of conflict, but this is not accurate. Primatologists describe rhesus and bonnet macaques as being “commensal” with humans, meaning that they benefit from people without affecting them. Perhaps the term was first used when these primates sporadically visited farmlands, snatched a mouthful here and there, and disappeared. But given the scale of loss today, ‘commensalism’ is difficult to support.
In forests, monkey numbers are constrained by the flowering and fruiting cycles of trees. But in the agricultural landscape, crops and horticultural produce are plentiful and widespread. As a result, monkeys gravitate towards human settlements. Both Thomas Jerdon and Stanley Prater, who wrote books on Indian mammals in 1874 and 1948 respectively, refer to villages as being the habitat of rhesus and bonnet macaques.
State response
When monkeys cause huge problems for humans, the state often relocates the animals by trapping troops of them from troubled areas and releasing them in villages and forests far away. But this merely transfers rather than solves the problem: the new locations often become fresh sources of conflict.
The article in Down to Earth, for instance, highlights the problems faced by Chaukha village, where the state released monkeys caught in Shimla and Mandi. At 2,000 metres above sea level, the village and its environs were too high for macaques to willingly colonise. Now, the village is forced to deal with the various problems caused by monkeys.
While cities dump their problem monkeys on unlucky villages, villagers in turn dump their monkeys near forests. Communities who live near forests are far down the social hierarchy, and ultimately suffer the consequences. Monkeys also pay with their lives because of these ill-advised transfers.
Besides undertaking relocation, Himachal Pradesh invested Rs 6.4 crore in 2007 to set up centres for sterilising monkeys, according to the Down to Earth article. The state now has the capacity to perform 54,000 sterilisations a year, or about 430,000 in eight years. But it has sterilised only 96,500 monkeys so far, or an average of 12,000 monkeys annually, well below the capacity. This low rate will not make a dent in the monkey population as thousands continue to breed.
In rare cases, states cull monkeys. In 2007, Himachal Pradesh, for instance, killed 480 monkeys in 200 of the worst-hit villages. But relief was temporary. Within two years, monkeys had re-colonised the areas.
Despite all these measures, Himachal Pradesh estimated that it had 226,000 macaques during a 2013 census. Although this is a drop of 90,000 from the 2004 census, or a 28% decrease, there is no sign of the conflict abating.
Farmers have attempted to deal with the problem themselves by guarding crops and using dogs to chase away primates. When the problem is so severe that they cannot save their crops for several seasons in a row, they often abandon farming altogether, sell their lands in distress sales, and in a few cases, switch to inedible crops.
Driven by desperation, they’ve become vociferous through groups such as Himachal Gyan Vigyan Samiti and Kheti Bachao Andolan.
Many consequences
While Himachal Pradesh’s unscientific response to resolving this conflict has been largely futile, other states have done little to give relief to farmers. In the roughly five decades from 1961-1963 to 2014, 90% of the bonnet macaque population in coastal Karnataka was wiped out, while about 48% of temple and tourist spots were also cleaned of macaques, according to estimates of primatologists, led by Mewa Singh from the University of Mysore.
They said the decline in numbers was a result of increasing conflict with people, who shot them dead or trapped and relocated the monkeys elsewhere.
In response to a public interest litigation filed in 2003 by Kanwar Rattanjit Singh in the Himachal Pradesh high court, the ministry of environment and forests drafted a plan in 2004 to solve the problem, called "Action Plan for Control of Stray Animal Menace (Monkeys, Stray Dogs, Stray Cattle & Pigs)."
In the same year, in response to a separate PIL filed in the Supreme Court, the ministry presented an identical document titled, "National Action Plan for Controlling Stray Animal Menace (monkeys, dogs, cattle and pigs)".
Appalled by the ministry’s insensitive clubbing together of domestic, feral and wild animals, a group of activists and experts, including four primatologists, two wildlife veterinarians and this writer, came up with an alternative plan.
The plan recognises 27 species of macaques and langurs. Many of these are supposedly in conflict with humans, but they are not numerous or widespread. For instance, although residents report conflicts with the Himalayan grey langur, it is a critically endangered species. Random relocation, sterilisation, and culling could cause it to become extinct. The methods used to manage conflict therefore have to be tailored to each species’ conservation status, and all species of monkeys cannot be treated the same way.
We sent copies of this plan to the environment ministry, and Sujoy Chaudhuri, one of the authors, made presentations to officials. But they did not appear to be interested in the finer points of balancing management with conservation. A decade later, we are no closer to managing the problem.
Had the authorities dealt with the issue when it was still manageable, it would not have blown up into the serious problem it has become in some northern states.
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