LARGE ANIMAL ATTACKS - Medicine for Mountaineering and Other Wilderness Activities - page 481

The spotted hyenas are primarily predators and successful pack hunters of small and
large ungulates. They are the most abundant carnivore on the African continent. Some ob-
servers consider them more successful predators and less dependent upon scavenging than
lions.
Hyenas attack natives sleeping outside their huts in warm weather, commonly decapit-
ating them or producing massive facial trauma. They have been known to attack campers
sleeping with their heads at the open end of a tent. They are more consistent man-eaters
than lions or tigers.
Primates
Bites by monkeys and other primates are common and occur most frequently in urban
sites and in animal preserves where the monkeys and other primates have become accus-
tomed to humans, particularly to being fed by humans. In Rohtak, India, monkey bites ac-
counted for 8.8 percent of all animal bites treated at the Postgraduate Institute of Medical
Sciences, and monkeys are becoming the second most common animal to inflict bites. In
Nepal,monkeysareresponsiblefor25percentoftheanimalbitesthatrequirepostexposure
rabies therapy.
OnesmallneighborhoodinNewDelhireportedmorethanthirty-fivemonkeyattackson
humansinonlyonemonth'stime.Theattacksincludedbites,breakingintopeople'shomes,
and vandalism. In that city monkeys often attack in packs, making them much harder to
fight off. In a New Delhi hospital monkeys have attacked doctors and have even tried to
run off with newborn babies.
Monkeysattackhumansinanefforttogetfood.MonkeysattheSwayambunathTemple
in Kathmandu, Nepal, are notorious for attacking humans—and for being infected with ra-
bies. In Malaysia over 300 monkey attacks on humans were reported in one year. Most of
the humans were carrying colorful, transparent plastic bags, and the monkeys apparently
thought the bags contained food.
Other primates attack humans for food, too. According to a bulletin from Cape Point,
South Africa, baboons are not a threat to humans until they get fed. Then they can become
aggressiveandattackhumanstogetfood.InTaung,asmalltowninSouthAfrica,ababoon
broke into a home and killed a three-month-old infant by biting its head. The area was suf-
fering from a drought, and the baboon apparently was searching for food. It bit the infant
when threatened by adults in the house.
Largerprimates,suchaschimpanzees, whichareincrediblystrong,goonrampagesthat
do not appear to be related to food. A chimp that had escaped from the Tacugama Chim-
panzee Sanctuary in Sierra Leone attacked a car carrying four adult men, killed one of the
men, and bit away half of the hand of another. Two chimps that escaped from a southern
Californiaanimalpreserveattackedamanandhiswife.Theychewedoffmostoftheman's
face, tore off his foot, and attacked his limbs and genitals. A psychobiologist who studies