Sterilisation campaign begins in ancient city overrun by monkeys, super-charged on junk food, whose population is growing out of control.
RESIDENTS barricaded indoors, rival gang fights and no-go zones for humans. Welcome to Lopburi, an ancient Thai city overrun by monkeys super-charged on junk food, whose population is growing out of control.
Pointing to the overhead netting covering her terrace, Kuljira Taechawattanawanna bemoaned the monkey menace across the heart of the 13th-century city in the central province of the same name.
“We live in a cage but the monkeys live outside,” she said.
“Their excrement is everywhere and the smell is unbearable, especially when it rains.”
The fearless primates rule the streets around the Prang Sam Yod temple in central Lopburi, patrolling the tops of walls and brazenly ripping rubber seals from car doors.
Their antics were largely tolerated as a major lure for the tourist hordes who visited the city before the Covid-19 outbreak to feed and snap selfies with the animals.
But a government sterilisation campaign is now being waged against the creatures after the pandemic provoked an unexpected change in their behaviour.
As foreign tourism – Thailand’s cash cow – seized up, so did the flow of free bananas tossed their way, prodding them to turn to violence.
Footage of hundreds of them brawling over food in the streets went viral on social media in March.
Their growing numbers – doubling in three years to 6,000 – have made an uneasy coexistence with humans almost intolerable. Some areas of the city have simply been surrendered to the monkeys.
An abandoned cinema is the macaques’ headquarters – and cemetery. Dead monkeys are laid to rest by their peers in the projection room in the cinema’s rear and any human who enters is attacked.
No one in Lopburi seems to remember a time without the monkeys, with some speculating that the urban creep into nearby forests displaced the simians into the city.
Residents have taken it upon themselves to feed the macaques to prevent clashes. But locals say the sugary diet of fizzy drinks, cereal and sweets has fuelled their sex lives.
“The more they eat, the more energy they have ... so they breed more,” said Pramot Ketampai, who manages the Prang Sam Yod temple’s surrounding shrines.
The macaques’ mob fights have drawn the attention of authorities, who restarted a sterilisation programme this month following a three-year pause.
Wildlife department officers lure the animals into cages with fruit and take them to a clinic where they are anaesthetised, sterilised and left with a tattoo to mark their neutering.
They are aiming to fix 500 of the creatures by tomorrow.
But the campaign may not be enough to quell their numbers and the department has a long-term plan to build a sanctuary in another part of the city.
But that will likely be met with resistance from the human residents.
“We need to do a survey of the people living in the area first,” said Narongporn Daudduem from the wildlife department.
“It’s like dumping garbage in front of their houses and asking them if they’re happy or not.”