Outrage as sniper kills vervet monkey
Residents fear for rest of troop
CONCERNS have been raised about the safety of a suburban troop of vervet monkeys after a mystery sniper killed a male in a Grahamstown yard last week.
Rhodes University journalism lecturer Paddy Donnelly said yesterday at least five monkeys from the troop had disappeared in less than a month.
Animal lovers Donnelly and neighbour Lorna Grant were left angry after a mature male was found with a high-powered pellet lodged in its chest below the wild fig trees in a garden near Fort England Hospital.
Grant, who scooped up the dead monkey, took it home and later buried it in a nearby veld, said it was “one of the worst days of my life”.
“The other monkeys in the trees looked into my eyes as if they were asking me why it had been shot,” she said.
“I picked it up and took it home and they all followed.”
According to Donnelly and Grant, a neighbour had spotted a man in the neighbourhood recently with a pellet gun around the time the dead monkey was found.
Donnelly said he had learned to co-exist with them over the years by covering up his banana trees and spraying other fruit with chilli to stop them snacking on it.
He said the troop had moved into the suburban neighbourhood in recent years from the nearby veld to look for food when the area was in the grip of a drought and then returned regularly – to the dismay of some residents.
According to Donnelly, the monkeys were being targeted by people with pellet guns because they stole fruit and sometimes entered people’s homes.
Attempts by local conservation officials to solve the problem by capturing six adults two years ago and relocating them elsewhere did not seem to work.
Donnelly and Grant claim since then little has been done to try solve the problem. They also raised concerns that children could be at risk from stray pellets fired indiscriminately at monkeys.
Although local conservation official Quintus Hahndiek has been dealing with the “problem” for several years, numerous attempts to get comment from him over two days this week proved fruitless despite leaving messages.
Donnelly said a letter he had written to Hahndiek late last week after he discovered the dead monkey in his yard, had still not been answered.
He said although an undertaking had been made to try and solve the matter, little had been done.
Facebook posts on the shooting drew widespread rage and condemnation.
Police spokeswoman Captain Mali Govender yesterday said although a person did not require a licence for air rifles, cruelty charges could be pursued for shooting at animals. — davidm@dispatch.