Wildlife SOS and Agra Development Authority partner to tackle monkey menace in city

AGRA:Agra Development Authority and Wildlife SOS have launched the first ever ambitious monkey sterilization and vaccination project to tackle the exploding population of rhesus macaques in the historical city and tourist hub of Agra.

The pilot project launched earlier this year targeted 500 monkeys. In March a total of 67 monkeys were trapped and on 27 and 28 May a total of 174 monkeys have been trapped so far after several months of carefully calibrated conditioning and troop monitoring by dedicated teams of Wildlife SOS in Agra city.

In a first of its kind, private public partnership (PPP) model collaborative initiative, the Agra Development Authority and the Agra District Administration has partnered with reputed wildlife conservation organization Wildlife SOS to tackle the growing monkey population in Agra city. Wildlife SOS has been working in Agra since 1995 to tackle the poaching of sloth bears that were being poached and trained to entertain tourists. As a result of Wildlife SOS’s efforts, they established the first ever bear rehabilitation in Agra – the Agra Bear Rescue Facility which is today the largest bar rehabilitation in the world for sloth bears. Since then Wildlife SOS has also established an elephant conservation and Care Center in neighbouring Mathura as well as assists the District Administration and Forest Department in addressing issues related to human wildlife conflict.

Agra commissioner Pradip Bhatnagar said “This marks a vital step for the ‘Human Primate Conflict Mitigation’ project that was launched by the District Administration with Wildlife SOS in 2016, which aims at combating the increasing monkey menace issue that has been plaguing the city for years. Recently we have even had fatalities of people caused by monkeys and a humane and scientific population control is key to the solution.”

Over the last two days, the Wildlife SOS team trapped 174 monkeys from high conflict zones like Belanganj, Nayi ki Mandi, SN Medical college where the maximum complaints of monkey bites and attacks originate from. Wildlife SOS carried out vaccination and sterilization procedure using a hitech & sophisticated laproscopic (key hole) surgical technique. The monkeys were marked using safe tattoos with a troop code and individual code before vaccinating them against rabies & tetanus after which the expert team of veterinarians from Wildlife SOS conducted a series of sterilization surgeries. The surgeries were conducted at the speciliaized Operation Theatre and recovery units for which the infrastructure was created with support from the Agra Development Authority.

Ms Manisha, vice chairperson ADA said, “This procedure ensures that the animals are not harmed but yet we are able to keep the numbers in control. The target is to operate on 500 monkeys in the first phase.”

Kartick Satyanarayan, Co-founder of Wildlife SOS said, "The Human Primate Conflict Mitigation Project in Agra is a visionary project that tackles the increasing conflict between people and monkeys. Feeding of Rhesus macaques by people for religious sentiments has habituated these animals damaging fields, creating nuisance in residential areas and biting people have increased exponentially across Uttar Pradesh, and hence it was the need of the hour to sterilize the monkeys for the long term control of their population. In March when we started the trapping procedure, several of the females were heavily pregnant and we could not operate them. We waited several weeks to ensure the babies had been delivered and are now restarting the procedure again to achieve the target of 500. This indicates the scale of the problem that Agra is facing where exploding population of monkeys is concerned.

Dr Arun Asha, Senior veterinarian at Wildlife SOS said, “We have successfully operated on the monkeys and they will be released back safely in the same area to prevent entry of new troops. This surgical procedure will be very effective in preventing this massive population explosion of monkeys that Agra is witnessing ”

Baiju Raj of Wildlife SOS said “The monkeys will be kept under medical observation and released back in the same location once they recover from the surgery”.