South Corpn to take monkey issue to SC

New Delhi: South Corporation mayor Subhash Arya directed civic officials on Monday to file a plea in the Supreme Court seeking suggestions on how to deal with monkey menace.
Under the Wildlife Protection Act, it is the responsibility of the state wildlife department to deal with monkeys in the capital. However, in 2007, the Delhi high court had directed the municipal corporations to catch the monkeys in the city area and release them in the nearby forests.
The director of the veterinary department, R B S Tyagi, told the House that no civic body in the country other than the Delhi corporations had been asked to catch monkeys. The councillors then reported an increase in the number of cases where monkeys had either stolen food and other items from home or caused ruckus in the residential colonies.
The leader of opposition, Farhad Suri, said the worst affected areas included East Nizamuddin, Sangam Vihar and Jangpura. "I live in East Nizamuddin and have faced monkey problems in the area. In fact, sometimes after reaching home, I'm forced to call someone from inside to get a stick to shoo away monkeys and protect myself from getting bitten," the Congress councillor said.
Corporation officials claimed that animal rights NGOs and activists often stopped them from catching monkeys. Supporting them, Suri said, "Just two to three days ago when we had caught an alpha male monkey, animal rights activists opposed the drive and finally it was taken to Friendicoes and, thereafter, they took it to Asola Bhatti."
Monkey-catchers insist that catching one monkey would not do and they need to catch the entire group to ensure that other members don't return to the area, the opposition leader said.
Following the court order, the corporation had issued public notices in newspapers in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan and Karnataka at least five times to appoint monkey-catchers but nobody had come forward for the job.
The veterinary department has also requested the Delhi government's wildlife department to provide trained monkey-catchers but the reply is still awaited.