Monkeys torment village

Christian Cotroneo, Foreign Correspondent

• Last Updated: April 26. 2008 10:53PM UAE / April 26. 2008 6:53PM GMT

Rhesus monkeys are one of three breeds in India known to cohabitate with humans. Manish Swarup / AP

Bhagirath Nagar, India // The good news is that New Delhi’s monkey population – a summertime scourge blamed for blackouts, robberies and even deaths in the capital – is dramatically down.

Since the city stepped up trapping measures about a year ago, monkey numbers have declined to about 4,000 from 7,000.

The bad news is they are being sent to a tract of almost barren land on the southern fringe of the city, the former site of the Bhatti mines. And they are not staying long.

The captured rhesus monkeys routinely get over the low fence that divides the sanctuary from the village nestled up against it, terrorising the 20,000 residents of Bhagirath Nagar.

On a sweltering day last week, they scampered, one, two and three at a time, along rooftops, touching down briefly in the village’s primary school, among young students in tattered blue uniforms.

The evidence of their escapades is etched into the flesh of some of those children.

Vikram Singh was back at school last week after days in bed recovering from a brutal monkey attack that left the eight-year-old boy with gruesome gashes across both legs. He was given four injections shortly after the incident.

Four-year-old Badal was also recovering after a monkey tackled him to the ground and tore into his scalp. He spent two days in a coma.

These two were the fortunate ones. In early March, a child died following a vicious attack.

Shortly after the mines were opened to house the urban monkeys, villagers found themselves facing some 10 attacks per day. Their complaints eventually led to a tender from the government – a small cash dispensation allowing the villagers to rent a langur monkey.

The fierce langur is routinely used at New Delhi residences and government buildings to scare off the smaller rhesus monkeys.

But after nine months, the government tender expired, leaving residents to stave off their unruly neighbours with sticks and slingshots. The trouble with sticks, said Dhara Singh Oad, the village president – who bears monkey scars of his own – is that they only provoke monkeys to attack.

And there are so few slingshots in the village, residents frequently attach tethers to their cell phones, hoping monkeys will think they are slings.

A local hospital provides free treatment for monkey bites, which carry a gamut of potentially fatal health risks, including herpes B and salmonella.

Frequently, however, victims like Mr Singh Oad are told the medicine is unavailable. The other option is to visit a private clinic, paying 250 Indian rupees (Dh23) per injection. Typically, three injections are needed, carrying a heavy price for villagers scarcely living off the land in squat mud houses with butchered goats hanging in temperatures approaching 40 degrees.

Instead, many turn to a homemade remedy of dubious efficacy: dried red chilli powder applied to the gash and scrubbed with soap.

The monkeys are also threatening to displace a community that has been here since the early 1970s.

“It’s a scam,” said Mr Singh Oad, suggesting that the heart of the problem is government corruption and a cabal of ruthless land developers. “They want to get us out of this area.”

The reason may be obvious enough. The road to the village is lined with freshly built country estates behind elaborate stone walls. In other places, For Sale signs hang prominently.

“The monkeys have been sent here so people would get bitten and leave,” Mr Singh Oad said.

Known for their docility in natural forest environments, rhesus monkeys are adapting to the concrete jungle – and getting meaner.

Not content to slip into embassies and tear up sensitive documents or terrorise passengers on local trains, the monkey menace claimed its first high-profile victim last year.

In October, the city’s deputy mayor was found dead at his residence after, it was reported, tumbling off his balcony trying to scare off the creatures.

Although records of monkey attacks are not reliably tracked, experts say they are increasing – mainly resulting from the growth of the city itself. As New Delhi sprawls and intensifies, it claims tracts of forests – the monkeys’ natural habitat.

Deprived of their natural food, the animals become increasingly bold in looking for alternatives among humans. Water shortages in the summer also send monkeys scurrying into public spaces.

But the plan to move them out of the capital has been criticised as failing to deliver on its aims.

When city officials were mulling over the idea for a sanctuary, Iqbal Malik, one of the world’s foremost primatologists, recommended the Bhatti mines, which were closed in 1990. “I suggested that they first green the sanctuary with monkey-friendly trees,” she said.

Instead, the area stretching several kilometres was studded with vilayati keekar trees, notorious for their rough, thorny branches, which routinely cut and chafe monkey hides.

“I suggested they make a monkey-proof fence,” she added.

The villagers of Bhagirath Nagar can attest to that dismal failure.

“I gave them diagrams. I gave them photographs. I also gave them names, including mine,” she said.

“They could not even make a monkey-proof fence when they were leaving monkeys in an area next to a village. They have shifted an urban problem to a rural area.”

That leaves residents grimly counting the steady stream of trucks passing through the village to drop off an estimated 450 monkeys per day. When one such truck rumbled up the dusty dirt road, children scampered in its wake, crying “Bundar! Bundar!” – the Hindi word for monkey.

In the back, a lone cage could be glimpsed with three baby monkeys huddled up against an adult.

Although they appeared frightened and bewildered, the fresh refugees would soon be free.

“Rhesus are aggressive if you tease them,” Ms Malik said. “They are aggressive if you have broken their families. They are aggressive if you have separated mother from infant.

“We create situations in which they become very aggressive.”

ccotroneo@thenational.ae