Monkeys in concrete jungles

Recently in a high-level meeting held in Delhi, a plan has been formulated where they would be captured, quarantined, acclimatised and then rehabilitated in natural habitat. 8220;If this plan become successful then it can be implemented in other citiesalso which have approached us,8221; said S.C. Sharma, Additional Inspector General, Forests.

There has been no official census conducted as yet on monkeys on an all-India basis but unofficial statistics say that there are around five lakh monkeys in the country and interestingly, 58 per cent of them are commensal monkeys those who live among humans. Before Independence the figures were 25-30 per cent.

Schools, hospitals, temples, defence areas and residential colonies is where one can see them in plenty and not amidst green forests as one would imagine.

8220;The best indicator is the flight distance. When a human approaches them, these monkeys do not run away, indicating that they are becoming more and more comfortable with humans,8221; said Brij Raj Sharma, director National Zoological park, New Delhi.

A number of reasons have been cited by scientists for this dramatic increase in their population in urban areas, apart from reduction in their natural habitat. 8220;There has been a decrease in fruit trees inthe forests, on which they are heavily dependent,8221; said H.C. Dhawan, chief conservator of forests, New Delhi.

More importantly, pre-1978, a large number of them were being exported to foreign shores for bio-medical and nuclear research. Indians finally reacted to the painful and cruel process they underwent in these tests. The government was forced to put a ban on their export leading to an increase in their number, say scientists.

Also, they are still captured in large numbers from the forests for biomedical research in the country and also the respective municipal corporations wanting to rid the city of the simians. 8220;The archaic method adopted by them, which is single-monkey trapping leads to the group undergoing chaotic fissionary behavior,8221; said Iqbal Malik, an environmentalist who has done her doctorate on monkeys.

This essentially means that the group divides into as many as 10 sub-groups and they require more core space8217;, they get spread out even more, heading towards concrete jungles. Thereis increased aggression in males and clinical depressive tendencies in the young ones.

Unlike their forest counterparts, these city monkeys do not know or have forgotten what to eat in which season and what to eat when they fall ill. They have a duller sheen on their coats, are more aggressive and are less agile as they spend more time on the ground than foraging for food on trees.

Malik is also involved in the operation to rehabilitate the monkeys in Delhi. Till now, efforts to send them back to nature had always failed because they were short-sighted. After drawing a tender, the the concerned corporation would pay the contractors Rs 150 per monkey. In the hand-trap method8217;, only numbers were important and as the shutters came down on the monkey8217;s hand, it would often break their wrists. After being released outside their city limits, the contractors would return, leaving them completely at a loss as they would be unable to cope with the alien habitat. The next few days would see them back in the townspestering people for food.

This time, Malik says she has found two ways in which these monkeys can be caught in a more sensitive and scientific manner. She is in the process of training New Delhi Municipal Corporation NDMC employees and their counterparts in Kerala where the same problem exists. For concrete areas, there is a Walkin cage, a large room-like structure where the bait is put and allowed to remain for a number of days, when the monkeys walk in and out. The moment the entire group is inside the shutters are pulled, trapping the whole group.

The other method is where there is a muddy ground. Nets with thick cotton threads are laid on the ground in such a way that they are not visible to the monkeys. They are only pulled when the entire group is in that area.

After trapping, the monkeys are shifted in transportation cages where adult males are separated from females and infants and the cage covered with cloth to calm the animals.

The next step which has always been ignored in Indiansettings is quarantine. 8220;Mo-nkeys are found to be suffering from the same diseases as the humans like TB, viral bacterial and parasites. If they are released in the wild as they are, the diseases might spread to other healthy ones also,8221; said Malik. The process of re-teaching them is long and painful. Something which has been part of their cultural learning is to be taught artificially. One cannot help but notice, the similarity between monkeys and humans. Those living in urban areas are aggressive, withdrawn, have diminished sense of belonging to their group and indulge in less grooming.

As one scientist working closely with them put it: 8220;They are a delight to study. They are humans minus their cultural clap-traps.8221;