Monkey business gets the better of school children

DURBAN: Installing water cannons, monkey-proof bins and feeding stations, and planting fruit-bearing trees.

These are some of the measures schools around Durban are implementing to deal with the “monkey problem”.

One school urges pupils to eat in the classroom to avoid having their lunch snatched.

On Monday, at Clifton School in Morningside, 12-year-old Luke Ashton was enjoying hot chips during break when he was cornered by a troop of monkeys. One bit his thigh.

“One of them grabbed my leg and bit me. I dropped the chips and ran. It didn’t hurt because the adrenaline was pumping,” said Luke. He has been given rabies injections.

Brian Mitchell, the headmaster at Clifton, said, “We have encouraged smaller pupils to eat in classrooms and use the cafeteria. We are trying to avoid lunch being unnecessarily taken out to open areas,” he said.

The school also had “monkey-proof” bins.

“Teachers have access to the water guns. We tried feeding stations, but it didn’t work because the troop increased…”

The University of KwaZuluNatal, which came under criticism in 2011 when some of its students allegedly beat a vervet monkey to death, revealed yesterday that it would pursue the feeding stations idea.

In a lecture by Jean Senogles of Primates Africa at the university’s Westville campus, she advised against using pellet guns, saying they could kill monkeys.

She said a pregnant monkey had been shot in the abdomen, and the mother and child had to be put down.

People needed to be calm, step back and avoid making eye contact when monkeys entered their homes, she said.

“If they feel threatened, then they’ll jump around and there will be chaos.”

Senogles suggested erecting feeding stations – “but they have to be monitored on a daily basis, they must have good and various food.”

Len Mzimela, of UKZN, welcomed the idea of feeding stations.