Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
with humans ensures the populations in the forests and nonconflict areas
of the state remain untouched. Adoption of other strategies like establish-
ment of Primate Protection Parks, education programs, garbage manage-
ment, and habitat enrichment will provide a synergistic approach to address
the problem in a sustainable manner. The strategy envisages a future with
minimal human-macaques conflict using a holistic approach for solving this
problem.
Much of the need for this awareness comes from the daily media which
emphasize the “monkey menace” in terms of human safety. In addition to prob-
lems of agricultural crop losses, for several years serious, even tragic, accidents
have been caused by monkeys throughout northern India. In April of 2004 a
newlywed young woman fleeing a group of threatening rhesus on the roof-
top of her home fell to her death in Patna, the capital of Bihar, eastern India.
An even more newsworthy case occurred in October 1997 when the Deputy
Mayor of Delhi fell to his death from his rooftop. Shri S. S. Bajwa was reading
a newspaper when four rhesus appeared on his rooftop. He waved a stick and
flashed the newspaper at them, one or two males lunged at him in a threatening
mode, he stepped back and fell off the rooftop. He died in the hospital of head
injuries.
Delhi has since had numerous accounts of monkey attacks and bites, includ-
ing an attack in her home on Priyanka Gandhi, the daughter of Sonia Gandhi,
Chief of the Congress Party in India, and widow of Rajiv Gandhi, former Prime
Minister of India. Rhesus in the cities of India often enter homes and offices
through open windows and doors. Delhi has reported 40,000 monkey and dog
bites annually, a serious public health threat considering the potential of rabies
in dogs and Monkey B virus (i.e., a herpes virus) in rhesus. Monkey B virus,
transmitted through monkey saliva, causes no serious or obvious pathology
in rhesus, but is usually fatal in the rare cases it has infected human beings.
Fortunately, the virus in rhesus has a short ephemeral viremia with rare trans-
mission to humans. Nonetheless, B virus is a generally unknown public health
danger from rhesus bites. A common cause of death in India as indicated in
coroner's reports is “FUO”, “Fever of Unknown Origin.”
Delhi has recently had a 10 million Rupee annual budget (US $253,000) to
control rhesus by capture and removal. The problem has always been “removal
to where?” No other states in India have been willing to receive them. Some
states have insisted on substantial grants to accept Delhi's monkeys. Holding
facilities have been developed outside Delhi and New Delhi, but at best they
have been able to accept only a few hundred monkeys, whereas the rhesus
