Asola sanctuary spends Rs 8 lakh/month to feed simians

New Delhi: Asola Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary, which is home to nearly 20,000 monkeys, is currently filled to its limit. However,

forest

officials say they have no option but to accommodate them, as Delhi doesn’t have any other “suitable” place to relocate the simians. Terming the rise in population of monkeys in the capital as an emergency situation, the Delhi

High court

had on Tuesday said that the sanctuary — where monkeys from different parts of the capital are relocated — has become “hopelessly overpopulated” by them.

It also asked the Centre to look into the feasibility of importing vaccine of immune-contraception to control their

numbers

in the Capital.

]The forest department has been feeding monkeys at Asola since 2007 after the high court directed civic agencies to capture and relocate them to the sanctuary. Officials say nearly 2,500kg of food is fed to the monkeys each day, with nearly Rs 8 lakh a month being spent on this alone. However, they say, there is no proper way to monitor the monkeys and ensure that they stay within the sanctuary limit.

“There are five designated points in the sanctuary where the monkeys are being fed each day. A majority of the population has now become dependent on the food, but some monkeys may still stray out of the sanctuary. It is difficult to monitor each

monkey

unless a tracker is installed on each of them,” a senior forest official said.

Forest officials say they had analysed other locations in the past, which included parts of Delhi ridge. However, these were rejected either because of shortage of space or being surounded by habitation. “We can’t relocate them to Delhi ridge either, as they will then head towards the nearest human settlement. Only the southern ridge has enough area to accommodate them. We will analyse the high court order before taking further action,” the forest official quoted above said.

A wildlife conservationist working at the sanctuary said the monkeys needed to be sterilised to bring down their population naturally. In the capital, the corporations have been tasked with capturing the simians. But lack of monkey catchers is hampering their job. “We are unable to catch enough monkeys as there are no monkey catchers around. We are holding discussions with the forest department,” a senior corporation official said.

In 2015, the lieutenant governor had ordered an inquiry into the condition of monkeys at Asola after minister Maneka Gandhi had alleged they were being starved.