Plea to Koh Chang tourists - please don't feed the monkeys!

Image: Thairath

KOH CHANG:-- Thai wildlife activists on Koh Chang have taken matters into their own hands to appeal to tourists not to feed monkeys on the holiday island.

The two groups comprising twenty members have noticed serious changes in simian behavior recently. Monkeys have been coming into populated areas to get food with many creatures electrocuted or killed in road accidents.

The activists also fear that it is having a bad effect on the island's ecosystem.

In addition there is the possibility that monkeys on the road will cause more accidents and that shops and houses will suffer theft of food and nuisance from the monkeys.

Guide Theerasak Suamcheepmaseua wants to see the monkeys remain in the forests that abound on Koh Chang.

Theerasak and his friends who have two Facebook pages have had some sponsorship but are mostly using their own money in the campaign that started yesterday.

There used to be signs some years ago but these have fallen into ruin and have not been replaced by the authorities thus prompting this private action.

Signs were paraded in two languages for both Thai and foreign tourists to stop feeding the monkeys.

The activists also had stickers handy and got a lot of attention with their megaphone messages in the beach areas of Sai Khao, Klong Prao and Lonely Beach.

Source: Thairath

-- 2016-07-30

Those are monkeys? I thought that they were part of the begging gang. ☺

Good idea. Then the monkeys will all retreat into the jungle (where they belong!) and there will be no more scams against tourists. At least on this particular island.

They should start a "don't feed stray dogs" campaign nationwide.

many people do not understand the significance of the

NO FEED signs.

they assume that they are doing something kind by feeding the monkeys. little do they realise that

feeding on food given by these people creates a sense of dependence

leading to a different kind of interaction between humans and the monkeys in

that the latter start to raid human homes to feed their acquired habit.