The UT Forest and Wildlife Department has swung into action to implement a long-term solution to end the rising human-monkey conflict in Chandigarh.
To confine monkeys to the forest areas and control their rising population in the city, the Department will develop more pockets of fruit bearing trees to ensure availability of enough food for monkeys in the forest areas. The Department had last year, developed three pockets of fruit bearing trees in forest areas here and will now extend these pockets by adding an area of four more hectares to it.
The forest areas here are adjoined to human habitations and the monkeys frequently come to the city in search of food.last year, the UT Forest Department had identified four plots of one hectare each in the city’s forest areas where the fruit bearing trees was planted to naturally hold back monkeys in the forests.
Interestingly, the mammals in the forests gave a hard time to UT Forest and Wildlife Department officials in accomplishing the task of creating these plots. The mammals, including porcupine, sambar deer, spotted deer, among others were often seen feasting on the seedlings and saplings planted to grow the fruit trees in small pockets of forest areas. later, a wire fence was put up by forest officials to stop mammals from entering small pockets and UT forest guards were also deployed to keep a vigil in the area.
After more than six months to the plantation process, the Department has now managed to put the plan back on track and has also decided to increase the area of plots in forests. “The UT Forest and Wildlife Department has decided to develop more pockets of fruit bearing trees to ensure enough food for monkeys in the forest areas so as to keep them away from the city,” said Kuldeep Sharma, UT deputy Conservator of Forests while talking to The Pioneer.
He said, “The Department will begin the plantation process to extend the existing developing pockets of fruit bearing trees. At present, a total of four hectares of land is used for the purpose. Now, four more hectares of land would be developed as pockets of fruit bearing trees.”
“At present, two hectares land is being developed at the Nepli, one hectare in Daria and one hectare in Patiala-ki-Rao forest area. Now, the Department will increase the area to two hectares in Daria, two hectares in Patiala-ki-Rao and develop two hectares area of fruit bearing trees in Kansal forests,” he added.
He said, “This plan to develop small pockets in forest areas is seen as a long-term solution to control the monkey menace in the city.” According to the ongoing survey by the UT Forest and Wildlife Department, around 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 Sectors 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, observed the Department’s staff. Notably, the Department had failed to elicit desired response from monkey catchers for three times during last year. The Department had hired trained monkey catcher in 2012 and had managed to catch as many as 105 monkeys in six months.
To deal with the monkey menace faced by the city residents, the Department had launched a helpline in the year 2010 to register complaints. Every month about 50-60 complaints of monkey rampage from various areas of Chandigarh are registered with the UT Forest and Wildlife Department. At present, the UT Department has been regularly issuing public notices about dos and dont’s” for the city denizens to deal with monkeys.