RHESUS MACAQUE

Entire northern and central India except northern Kashmir, high altitudes of the western Himalayas, Great Indian desert, and west-central India.

MONKEYS LIKE TO HANG AROUND HUMANS BECAUSE THEY HAVE EASY ACCESS TO FOOD. BUT THE RESULT IS MORE CONFLICT

(PFA). She is a petitioner in a number of cases on animal rights.

“In a very old case called New Friends Colony residents Vs Union of India, the court suggested sterilisation of monkeys in Delhi. But we recently submitted that immuno-contraception may be a safer idea,” she added.

According to research by PFA based on the pilot sterilisation project carried out in Agra, sterilisation can cost up to Rs 37,000 per monkey.

HT could not reached Gandhi, the Union women and child development minister, for comment. A trustee of the PFA, Gauri Maulekhi, said she would not comment on the issue. The minister has earlier said that food leftovers should be better managed to reduce monkey-human conflict in Delhi.

Jaysimha Nuggehalli, animal rights lawyer and head of Humane Society International in India, said none of this may work. “You have to understand that monkeys are not territorial.They move in troops. Sterilisation works if they are contained in one place and other monkeys are not moving in from other places. They will come wherever there is easy access to food. Plus, since they imprint humans, they lose their fear. I don’t think immuno-contraception will work either because they will keep moving. I think the only way to stop this is to stop feeding them and to stop leaving food waste on roads. Singapore solved its primate problem by changing the design of their dustbins for example.”

There are other problems in immuno-contraception as well, according to Satish K Gupta, emeritus scientist, National Institute of Immunology who is