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LIVING: MONKEY MENACE
Rage Of The Rhesus
Primates strike at humans in the Capital and spread panic.
But nobody seems to have a solution.
By Anshul Avijit
It was the first
time Charu Sharma was taking her fivemonth-old baby girl Anoushka for
a ride in her new pram. It was one of those small, pretty, colony parks
in Lajpat Nagar in south Delhi, full of swings, slides and springtime
salvias. Sharma had chosen it because the crescent park was bigger than
the one in front of her house, a few blocks away. Just as she was entering
the park, an elderly woman warned Sharma that there were a few rogue monkeys
hanging around and that it would be better if she left with the baby.
Sharma politely acknowledged the warning, but noticing that the park was
crowded with children, continued her walk. As she and her maid were negotiating
the gap in the neatly trimmed hedges, a rhesus monkey suddenly sprang
out of nowhere, jumped on the baby and began clawing at her cheeks. Says
Sharma: "As it had come from behind, at first I thought it was a
dog or just another child playing a prank. When I realised it was a monkey
I screamed and tried to pull it away. But it would not budge. Only when
I dug my nails into its head did it finally leave my baby."
 Not
before the damage was done. The enraged primate then turned on the maid,
bit her hand and attacked the gardener before it ran out of sight. Anoushka,
fortunate to be still alive, needed surgery, 25 stitches on her face and
the mandatory four-injection anti-rabies shots apart from sedatives. Sharma
is still in a state of shock-she now refuses to take her baby out anywhere
in the open. The violent monkey, on the other hand, could be out on the
prowl looking for another victim.
This is not a stray incident. The Lajpat Nagar
police station alone has recorded more than 35 monkey attacks on humans
in the past month, including bites, housebreaks and vandalism. Other colonies
in Delhi have reported much worse-in the trans-Yamuna colony of Mayur
Vihar, a concrete jungle of DDA flats, the monkey menace has come to such
a head that people in some parts (like Pocket E) arm themselves with sticks,
rods and firecrackers before venturing out.
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TRAUMATIC: Anoushka needed 25
stitches after a monkey bit her |
In Noida, a little further away, monkeys are
now attacking humans in predatory packs. When Ruchir Dhall, a 29-year-old
architect, discovered a rhesus happily savouring a banana on his dining
table at his residence in Sector 40, he chased it out, only to be attacked
by a gang of five others who were waiting outside. Dhall managed to shake
them off by shouting for help and acting aggressive, but was bitten and
badly bruised.
No place appears safe. In Kasturba Gandhi Hospital
near Jama Masjid in north Delhi, monkeys have not only attacked doctors
but have also attempted to run away with newborn babies. In Sarojini Nagar,
a government colony in central Delhi, there have been at least 200 monkey
encounters with local residents, mostly women and children, according
to Dr Shiv Prasad Gautam, general practitioner with the Central Government
Health Services (CGHS). Gautam, who also frequents the CGHS clinic at
South Avenue which houses quarters for MPs, says he also gets a lot of
patients from the precincts of the Rashtrapati Bhavan, sometimes as many
as four a day. "In my experience, there has been a 10 to 15 per cent
annual increase in monkey bites," says Gautam. "And if concrete
steps are not taken soon, the percentage is likely to double."
Why this sudden anger of the primates against
people? After all, both have co-existed relatively peacefully in the capital
for generations, barring the odd skirmish. Environmentalist Vivek Menon,
who has been monitoring the monkey menace, blames it on the faulty strategy
of the Government: "Monkeys are extremely social animals and indiscriminate
trapping by the civic authorities has meant an increase in abnormal behaviour
since troupes get estranged."
He, however, admits that other reasons, like
the shrinking of the Delhi ridge (the rhesus' natural habitat), the misplaced
generosity of Delhi's monkey-worshipping public "who offer the animals
mounds of food every Tuesday and Thursday" and the heaps of garbage
that lie as an open invitation for rampaging bands, are equally important.
It also appears that in the past four years
the population of the rhesus monkeys in Delhi has gone up significantly.
Primatologist Iqbal Malik conducted a population survey of monkeys in
Delhi last year and estimated their number between 5,000 and 6,000 with
an increase of about 20 per cent every year. Malik also attributes the
increased monkey attacks on humans to the current practice of laboratories
to release monkeys in urban areas at the behest of "some NGOs".
"Clearly they are not healthy monkeys, and they are essentially the
ones that are biting people," she says.
To make matters worse, post-bite care too is
risky. Sudhir Krishna, a paediatric surgeon with Moolchand Hospital who
treated Anoushka's lacerated cheeks, says that apart from the threat to
life, the imported rabies vaccine, which contains human antibodies and
is given immediately after the bite, is more effective and has less side-effects
but costs a staggering Rs 4,000. The locally produced vaccines, though
a lot cheaper at around Rs 650, are only antigens whose side-effects include
allergic reactions of various sorts. "The monkey bite is also responsible
for spreading bovine tuberculosis," he adds "and well might
be a reason for Delhi's diseased cattle."
Rather than killing the monkeys both Malik and
Menon suggest an integrated (but rather unrealistic) approach that calls
for translocating entire packs of monkeys to forests in neighbouring states,
roping in residents' welfare organisations to spread awareness about the
dangers of feeding monkeys, clearing garbage and maintaining quarantine
shelters for purging the animals of diseases and to sterilise them. "The
problem is the Government doesn't want to do anything. It is waiting for
NGOs to solve the problem," says Menon.
But the authorities, in their own feeble way,
have made an unconventional effort-of getting a langur to drive away the
rhesus. At Nirman Bhavan, a government building near the Rashtrapati Bhavan
beleaguered by the rhesus threat, a langur on a leash threatens away its
more troublesome cousin. The predictable upshot? The monkeys simply move
away to trouble residents in neighbouring areas.
Stop-gap approaches won't work. And time is
running out for the capital's distressed populace. Although the Wildlife
Protection Act, 1972, forbids killing of any animal except the rat, the
mouse and the common crow, there is also a provision that the chief wildlife
warden of each state or Union Territory can make exceptions if the animal
poses a threat to human life. B.P. Mishra, chairman, New Delhi Municipal
Corporation, is clear: "The only solution is to cull them."
Opinion, however, remains divided.
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