Lop Buri administration to capture and sterilise monkeys

By The Nation

 

The Lop Buri provincial administration plans to capture some 100 to 200 monkeys that have been causing nuisance to the people in the downtown area.

 

Lop Buri Governor Phanu Yaemsri said the crackdown on the monkeys living near the Manorah Market will begin on Sunday and end on April 28. The captured monkeys will be sterilised and moved to the animal sanctuary in Nakhon Nayok.

 

The operation is aimed at controlling the population of monkeys in the province, the governor said, adding this group of monkeys had moved out from the Phra Kan Shrine and had been causing trouble to the local residents.

 

He said Lop Buri livestock officials will use modern microscopic operation technique to perform surgery on the female monkeys to minimise the wound.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/news/breakingnews/30313018

 

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2017-04-22

Is it over population or loss of habitat?  Even poor monkeys are not safe from the "crack down' mentality gripping Thailand these days.  Would be nice to hear what conservationists have to say prior to a bureaucrat making a decision. 

This has been going on for years... 8 years ago these monkeys were rampant in the streets near the market and in the market itself... You could not stop your motorcycle if you had food on it.. 

What took them so long? 

Good idea if done right. Regardless of the reasons...runaway overpopulation of any species is not a good thing. Too bad humans only see this as a solution for other earthlings, ignoring the bad effects of overpopulation of our own species. 

13 hours ago, yellowboat said:

Is it over population or loss of habitat?  Even poor monkeys are not safe from the "crack down' mentality gripping Thailand these days.  Would be nice to hear what conservationists have to say prior to a bureaucrat making a decision. 

The former. No forests have been cut down in downtown Lopburi for many, many years. Those monkeys have been at that shrine in Lopburi, just outside the railway station for at least 40 years. I remember seeing them there in 1978. Maybe it's been centuries, as the shrine was built by the Khmers when they ruled the area. Sidenote: That shrine used to be on the back side of the 500-baht bill.

 

The problem here is the same as with soi dogs, except monkeys are a lot smarter and braver. They'll hurt you bad if you mess with them.

Is this how Dr Mengele got his start in a disastrous career? I didn't like the sound of that throwaway line about "livestock officials"conducting surgery on female monkeys. Apart from thoughts about how officials re-locate inconvenient bears 'safely'in helicopters, I have to wonder what medical and ethical policies led to the decision to sterilise females instead of male monkeys. sterilising males is far easier, cheaper and less detrimental to the species.  The captured monkeys are all supposedly being taken to a sanctuary anyway. Why the rush to mutilate?  The human species seems to take every opportunity to display a lack of humanity towards their own and other species too often..