After failing to rope in professional monkey catchers in the city, the UT Forest and Wildlife Department has now decided to take matters into its own hands.
Now, instead of getting monkey catchers, the Department’s staff would catch monkeys on its own in Chandigarh. For this, a survey is being conducted by the Department to identify monkeys’ groups roaming freely at various locations in Chandigarh.
The Department’s staff is observing the time and activities of these groups in different areas of the city. After collecting the information of several areas during the ongoing survey, the Department has simultaneously initiated the process to tackle the monkey menace.
The Department’s staff is setting up traps in the identified locations to capture the monkeys.
Kuldeep Sharma, UT deputy Conservator of forests while talking to The Pioneer said, “The UT Forest and Wildlife Department has initiated the process to set up traps to capture the monkeys in the identified localities of Chandigarh. In absence of the professional monkey catchers, the staff of the Department would now catch the monkeys.”
He said, “In a day, two monkeys have been caught by the Department. During the ongoing survey, the Department has observed locations and time of visit of identified monkey groups. And, the Department is looking forward to utilise the information collected to catch the monkeys.”
He further said, “The survey is going on and information of some locations is yet to be gathered.”
“Every month about 50-60 complaints of monkey rampage from various areas of Chandigarh are registered with the UT Forest and Wildlife Department. The Forest and Wildlife Department has been regularly issuing public notices about dos and dont’s for the city denizens to deal with monkeys,” he added.
According to the ongoing survey, nearly 500 monkeys are roaming freely on the streets of Chandigarh. In its ongoing survey to identify the groups of monkeys in the city and the areas where their population is in large numbers here, the Department had identified 12 groups of monkeys.
Each group has 35-40 numbers of monkeys. And, the monkey menace is prevalent in Sector 7, 9, 11, 26, 28, Punjab University Sector 14, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) in Sector 12. The identified groups of monkeys are often seen in these sectors at different times, revealed the survey.
To deal with the monkey menace faced by the city residents, the Department had launched a helpline in the year 2010 to register complaints. The Department was flooded with over 700 complaints of monkey rampage in last two years.
Notably, the Department had failed to elicit desired response from monkey catchers for three times this year.
The UT Forest and Wildlife Department had hired trained monkey catcher last year and had managed to catch as many as 105 monkeys in six months. For each catch, the Department had paid Rs 500 to the
monkey catcher.