Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
population of Delhi has been estimated at several thousand. No completely
satisfactory solution to the problem of Delhi's urban “monkey menace” has
yet been found.
In northwest India, in the state of Himachal Pradesh where rhesus are both
a serious agricultural pest, and an urban pest in the city of Shimla, a plan has
been developed to sterilize 65,000 male monkeys. Dr. S. K. Sahoo, who has
studied rhesus behavior and ecology in HP for many years, feels the program
will be expensive, and is not likely to be successful. The country of Tajikistan
has offered to accept some of HP's monkeys, probably with the idea of creating
a profitable trade in rhesus monkeys for biomedical research and commercial
pharmaceutical use. The international supply of rhesus now comes primarily
from China, and healthy rhesus (known as SPF or Specific Pathogen Free) have
become very expensive, in the order of several thousand dollars per individual.
As a primate species of both cultural and commercial importance, rhe-
sus have been victims of two unfortunate management practices. During the
1950s and '60s, rhesus were certainly subject to excessive trapping and export
which led to serious population decline and a threatened status. However,
India's decision in 1978 to halt all export for legitimate biomedical and
pharmaceutical use, went too far. It failed to consider the high reproductive
rates, potential for rapid population growth, commensal nature, and destruc-
tion of natural habitat for rhesus. As a result, rhesus entered agricultural, vil-
lage, and urban environments in increasing numbers, becoming serious pests.
Rhesus also have a potential impact on public health as reservoirs of many
human pathogens, including those of measles, influenza, encephalitis, hepa-
titis, tuberculosis, dysentery, and amoebiasis (Jones-Engel et al ., 2006 ; Shah
and Southwick, 1965 ).
In retrospect, it would have been more reasonable to recognize that mod-
erate harvest and humane utilization of rhesus would be beneficial for both
human and rhesus populations. Rhesus numbers could have been kept within
reasonable levels from the standpoint of crop losses, and both human and mon-
key health and safety. A comparable situation in the United States to the total
cessation of rhesus export from India would be to stop all hunting harvest of
white-tailed deer. White-tailed deer are a commensal species with a high repro-
ductive rate, and potentials for rapid population growth. Excessive populations
have an important ecological impact through serious forest damage. They
are also a factor in human health in harboring the bacterium, Borrelia , which
causes Lyme disease, the most common tick-borne illness in the northern US.
In humans, it results in high fevers and may lead to long-term chronic illness.
Scientists have recognized for a long time the value of rhesus as models
in biomedical and behavioral research because of their basic biological ana-
logies to us. Their biological analogies are true in their disease spectrum,
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