After chalking out a broad-strategy to control monkey menace in Chandigarh, the UT Administration has now swung into action to end the rising human-monkey conflict in the city.
With the help of a professional monkey catcher, the UT Forest and Wildlife Department is now setting up traps at identified locations in Chandigarh to capture the monkeys.
A survey was recently conducted by the Department to identify monkeys’ groups roaming freely at various locations in Chandigarh. The Department’s staff had observed the time and activities of these groups in different areas of the city.
This time, the UT Department also has a new challenge at hand as monkeys have always outsmarted them and setting up cages has not always helped in capturing the monkeys.
Kuldeep Sharma, UT deputy Conservator of forests while talking to The Pioneer said, “After collecting the information of several areas during the survey, the UT Forest and Wildlife Department with the help of a professional monkey catcher has initiated the process to catch monkeys.”
He said, “As monkeys can recollect, what they have seen in the past, the Department has to work out a different method every time to trap them. last year, cages with food were put under sheets to trap the monkeys but this time, the Department has devised another method.”
“A plastic bottle is cut into half and a fruit is placed in it which is tied with an invisible wire passing through the bottle. Sooner or later, a monkey swings by and slips hand through the small hole to grasp the fruit and tries to pull it through the hole, which is not possible. This is when the monkey catcher walks in and captures monkey by throwing a net over him,” he said.
In the past two months, the Department has caught around 35 monkeys, he added. The months long survey conducted by the Department had identified 12 groups of monkeys in Chandigarh. According to the survey, each group had 35-40 numbers of monkeys taking their total population to about 500 in the city.
After the survey, the UT Forest and Wildlife Department had prepared a map identifying areas where monkey menace is prevalent in the city. The information included population in each monkey group, their movement at various locations and at different time slots among other details.
As per the Department’s survey, 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.
The forests areas like Sukhna Wildlife Sanctuary, Sukhna Forest Reserve are adjoining the city, thereby bringing monkeys closer to human habitations. Every month about 50-60 complaints of monkey rampage from various areas of Chandigarh are registered with the UT Forest and Wildlife Department.
Earlier also, a professional monkey catcher had assisted the UT Forest and Wildlife Department in capturing monkeys and releasing them in the forest area of Sukhna Wildlife Sanctuary.
The UT Department had hired trained monkey catcher in 2012 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.