Of all the pesky animal pests that ever made a nuisance of themselves, monkeys have to be among the most vexing. They are smart, adaptable, dexterous – they even have little hands – frequently bad-tempered, and they breed rapidly. A town in Thailand is beset by just such a problem, and their methods for dealing with the critters are novel, but will probably be futile in the end:
A Thai town, run ragged by its ever-growing population of marauding wild monkeys, launched an offensive against the simian raiders on Friday, using trickery and ripe tropical fruit.
Several high-profile cases of monkey-human conflict recently convinced authorities in Lopburi in central Thailand that they had to reduce the animals’ numbers.
If all goes well, most will end up behind bars, before starting a new life elsewhere.
The first stage of the plan, instituted Friday, is to bait cages with the animals’…
