Eyeing to curb monkey menace desperately in view of public and political pressure, the foresters in Shimla had a tough task to perform over last two months!

They chased monkey troops in the city day in and day out to equip themselves with ‘intelligence’ that may help them control primate population in Shimla effectively.

It was the first such exercise, which studied the number of monkeys.

The report noted that locals regularly fed monkeys for various reasons, and the simians too have understood that. As a result they adapted to city life, junk food and leftovers in garbage dumps.

The report on ‘money estimation’, which was submitted to chief wildlife warden Dr Ramesh Kang, observed over 1700 monkeys in 31 wards (out of 34) of Shimla from 16 July to 4 September in 2018. It mapped the troops of monkeys, males and females, adults and sub-adults area wise with their habits and behaviour.

The exercise was conducted by a four-member team of Forest Department, with the help of ecotask force.

“The details will help in making effective strategy to control the monkey numbers and strengthen the sterilisation programme,” said Dr Sandeep Rattan, a veterinarian, who is Assistant Director with wild life wing of forest department.

The report identified the problem, wherein monkeys have started living so close to humans due to expanding habitation and lack of natural food resources and habitat loss for the animal.

“The result is conflict over living space and food and the repercussion is retaliation. With day to day adaptation, however, the monkeys have s tar ted snatching just every dam thing from people, right form food to spectacles to cameras. In the process, they attack children, women and helpless tourists, due to which the monkey bite cases are also increasing.”

The report highlighted that in many parts of Shimla, the monkeys are totally dependent on waste food in dumpers. There are over 83 dumpers in Shimla, out of which 45 are always found with monkeys, langoors. Monkeys watch the people throwing garbage in dumpers and they immediately jump to eat the waste food.

“The monkey home range is not fixed, the troop moves continuously in search of food but their roosting site is fixed, after whole day journey they collectively shared the roosting site. For food, they always segregate in small subgroups in search of food and meet in same roosting site at roosting time.”

The report categorically held that monkeys are breeding in uncontrollable manner due to easy available junk food in Shimla “In forests, a Rhesus macaque has to spend about 10-14 hours in search of food. In the city, monkeys take only ten minutes to find food. The primates in Shimla eat wild leaves, bark and fruits only, when there is scarcity of food.”

The report hammered the need to take drastic steps like a check on feeding of monkeys and the garbage dumps to check monkey problem.