The Hindu : New Delhi News : Dy. Mayor’s death brings focus on monkey menace

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Tuesday, Oct 23, 2007
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New Delhi

Dy. Mayor’s death brings focus on monkey menace

Staff Reporter

Capturing simians not within MCD’s purview, says Mayor

Photo: V. V. Krishnan

Meal time: Despite a High Court ban on feeding monkeys, there is no dearth of food for the simians as this one feasts on figs in New Delhi on Monday.

NEW DELHI: Catapulting the uneasy relationship between humans and monkeys into the limelight, Delhi Deputy Mayor S. S. Bajwa’s tragic death due to a fall as he allegedly avoided an attack of these arboreal creatures this past weekend has yet again pushed to the fore a scenario that is considered part and parcel of any semi-urban setting in North India.

Though in a reaction to a strict directive by the High Court earlier this year the Municipal Corporation of Delhi had gone into overdrive to capture the Capital’s monkeys, Mayor Arti Mehra on Monday said this work did not really fall under the civic body’s purview. “Since May this year we have managed to capture 1,250 monkeys, of which over 450 were caught in the last 20 days. We are also planning to advertise in newspapers in Tamil Nadu and Assam as we’ve had good experience with monkey-catchers from these States. There are plans to increase the monkey-catching teams to 12 from the existing two. The rate for capturing the animals has also been increased to Rs.450 per monkey.”

However, the Mayor added, the onus for evacuating the simians from the Capital lay jointly on several organisations including other civic agencies such as the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) and the Centre’s Wildlife Department.

“The Rhesus macaque is classified as a wild animal as per the Wildlife Act of India and therefore does not come under the purview of the MCD. We are responsible only for domestic animals. As far as the monkeys are concerned, the Court directive has explicitly stated that all civic agencies are to collaborate their resources and ‘deport’ the animals to the Asola Bhatti Mines near Mehrauli,” said MCD Veterinary Officer V. K. Singh. However, the upkeep and security of the captured monkeys was not the civic body’s prerogative, he added. The “monkey menace” is as much a problem as rabid-dogs and Hitchcockian birds, an outcome of humanity’s perpetual invasion of natural habitats. An animal rights activist in the Capital said the problem, if at all there was a problem, was a culmination of the “constant erosion” of an animal’s natural habitat.

“Delhi has always had monkeys inhabiting its forest cover. But with ever-increasing urbanisation, monkeys too have evolved into a city-slick variety,” he said.

Often known to gravitate towards urban settings from rural environs lured by easy hand-outs of food from humans, monkeys in this country are by turns worshipped, dreaded, tortured into delivering street performances and, lately, victimised for doing what they are genetically built to do – act like monkeys.

Recently some municipal councillors had proposed to ship stray dogs to East Asian countries as a solution to their unceasing menace. “Maybe the civic body should just propel our simian ancestors into space and rid us of this ‘menace’ for good,” said a seasoned Delhiwallah on Monday.

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