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Langoor's wild run ends, at last

Sib Kumar Das

Veterinary experts from Nandankanan captures it

— Photo: Lingaraj Panda

SUCCESSFUL ATTEMPT: The monkey that terrorised people in Narendrapur area encaged and kept at Berhampur forest range office on Tuesday.

BERHAMPUR: Veterinary experts from Nandankanan zoological park managed to catch the `rogue' langoor on Tuesday that was on the verge of getting death sentence due to its anti-human activities at Narendrapur village on the outskirts of the city.

This wild langoor had injured around 40 persons of the village. The forest department had declared it `rogue' and had asked for permission from the administration to kill it if all attempts to catch it alive failed. Local forest officials had failed to sedate the primate with sedative darts. Attempts were also made to use Mankadia tribals from western Orissa who specialise in monkey catching to catch the langoor.

But these tribals did not agree to travel such a long distance.

At last a veterinary experts' team from Nandankanan, led by Ranjit Samantray, reached the city on Monday evening to catch the langoor. The forest officials preferred to keep their arrival a secret, as they did not want a crowd to gather which could have shooed away the langoor, said the Berhampur Divisional Forest Officer (DFO), Siba Narayan Mohapatra.

On Tuesday morning the team from Nandankanan tracked down the langoor near the Narendrapur village. They had to use two sedative darts.

After being captured the langoor was kept under supervision of Dr. Samantray for several hours. It was administered antidotes for the sedative. After its pulse and sense came back to normal it was put in a specially prepared wooden cage. It would be under supervision of forest officials in Berhampur for four to five days at the forest range office in the city. After that arrangements would be made to release it in some deep jungle area with water facility and fruit-bearing trees, said Dr. Samantray. Most probably this monkey would be released at the jungles near Tangi-Chandpur.

Dr. Samantray's team had last year captured a monkey that had killed a child in the city and another monkey that had become a menace at Chatrapur in Ganjam district. Both these monkeys were later released at the jungle near Tangi-Chandpur.

Meanwhile, the veterinary expert has recommended diet and medicines for the captured langoor which the forest officials are adhering to till the primate becomes fit enough to be released in jungle.

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