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Monkeys make farmers flee from fields

By Kanwar Yogendra

SHIMLA: "The monkey menace has forced me to abandon the entire agricultural activity in my fields and now I am struggling for works on a daily-wage basis," said Jai Shiv Thakur, a farmer badly affected by simians' assaults, at a peripheral Shimla village.

The population of monkeys and langoors has increased manifold in the past few years in various towns in the hill State. Earlier a source of amusement for the local and international tourists and concentrated only in the towns, they are now descending on the fields of farmers and ruining agriculture in at least 2301 of 3243 panchayats in the State.

A majority of the farmers in these areas have either stopped sowing or are busy day and night looking after their fields from an abrupt attack from hordes of simians living in the area.

The monkey menace, which had remained limited to a nuisance level in the towns, has become a major issue in the villages now. Some of the activists of Himachal Gyan Vigyan Samiti, a voluntary organisation working in the State and fighting the issue at every level, have been urged by the people to fight the coming Panchayat elections against party candidates. They have generated so much debate that people are forcing them to take up the matter at all available government platforms, said Thakur who has been made a candidate by his village folk for the Zila Parishad block of Anandpur near the State Capital.

A high level team of experts from the Centre visited the State on Monday to take stock of the problem. The scientists from the Primate Research Centre and forest department have been convinced by the devastation caused by monkeys. They have advised immediate sterilization of male monkeys and their shifting to forests from agricultural lands.

The faulty forest policy of the government has led to mass migration by wild animals towards the human habitations, said the Samiti activists. In their interaction with the experts' team they demanded that a special wing to be initiated in the wild life division of State Forest Department. They advised for a change in the wild life conservation act and wanted some of the animals be declared as vermin and allowed to be shot. Instead of farmers the forest department should constitute teams of huntsmen in the infested areas.

The affected farmers in their interface with the Central team had also demanded proper compensation to the affected people.

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Monkeys make farmers flee from fields

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