Shimla: Many monkeys have taken over the historical Indian city of Shimla. There, sterilisations and illegally poisoned drugs have not been able to stop their attacks on tourists and farmers. Most macaques fled the city to seek food during India’s coronavirus lockdown. They have been able to bully people and steal grocery bags as restrictions have relaxed. Up to 50 hungry monkeys are now roaming the former British colonial summer escape in the Himalayan mountains. Many Monkey catcher try to catching them but fails.
Tourists come to India for its summer heat and the city of 160,000 inhabitants is a popular choice. But the food waste that they leave behind is a draw for hungry simians. Nand Lal displayed to AFP the injuries sustained in an altercation with animals earlier this month. The 46-year old said, “I was walking past a group monkeys when the dominant male suddenly attacked my and three other people piled in.” He required multiple anti-rabies shots after the attack. “Fortunately, I was able to take a stick and defeat them. My head and face were covered in bruises. I had a bite on my stomach. Lal claimed that he could hear his attackers’ “chattering” days later and two dozen monkeys watching him.
Kuldeep Chand Sood a retired judge at the High Court said that people are afraid and don’t know how to respond. He said, “I was going through my book and suddenly a large monkey attacked me and bit me.” Many Sanjauli houses now have metal cages covering their windows and terraces to keep the intruders out. They have been known to even steal refrigerators from homes. In recent years, about 157,000 animals were sterilized in Himachal Pradesh. This was according to one expert as the only way to control the problem. A