An official press release from the Department of Wildlife Protection says they have launched a drive against feeding of monkeys on roads by the people. Good indeed if carried at the appropriate and vulnerable spots in Jammu and other monkey infected areas.
It was claimed that to deal with the monkey menace, the drive has been devised having two components- first the awareness of the people with respect to the habit of throwing food articles on roads and the 2nd component is collection of such food articles directly from the people.
However, the statement does not reveal the places and spots where the department has undertaken the drive against the menace. Interestingly, one finds hordes of monkeys roaming free and showing their acrobatics at the busy BC Road just in front of the wildlife protection office itself.
The animals have been otherwise fine within their natural habitat on and around the Manda hills between the Old Mubarak Mandi complex to the Janipur High Court complex up and spreading northward from Manda to Nagrota to Bann to and then to Nandni. There are equally other habitats like Bahu Fort, Katra, Belts of Reasi, Ramnagar, Kathua and upper reaches of Ramban etc.
According to a study paper in 2018, about 250 villages in Jammu reported loss of farm produce worth Rs. 33 crore because of invasion by wild monkeys. Sometimes in severe attack, they cause damage upto 90% in agriculture and horticulture. They raid crops and utilize the agro-ecosystems for food resources and shelter. Hence monkeys are considered pests in the areas of massive agriculture, horticulture and other plantations since they damage the crops and orchards. But due to religious sentiments and societal taboos, the monkeys cannot be harmed or killed.
The study further said that a large tracts/chunk of agricultural land has been left barren due to huge armies of defiant monkeys. Gross cropped area of Jammu Division is 7.48 lakh ha, out of which 0.335 lakh ha area is affected due to monkey menace, affecting 81298 farming families covering 1590 villages with economic loss ranging from 15 to 40 % thus forcing the farmers to abandon the agriculture activities and seek migration to cities and other areas to eke out their livelihood due to their adversely affected agrarian economy.
The major causes of these animals moving to busy roads and civic areas in the Siwalik foothills: destruction of natural habitats and change in feeding habits for which many people are responsible; destruction of wild fruit tree plantations / deforestation/ scarcity of food in forests. Feeding monkeys with gram, bread and fruit as a religious activity; poor garbage and waste management system has provided them ample food in the form of leftovers. There is no dearth of incidents when moving vehicles on the road hit them and killed these poor animals in their attempts to grab food thrown before them by someone.
To deal with the nuisance is not an easy task and is subject matter of specialists. While the problems should be addressed with a multi-pronged strategy, the department of WildLife Protection should at least take it as a serious challenge. It should ensure plantation of wild-fruits trees in the forest and bushes pockets near to urban areas coupled with a strong awareness drive and also strictly restricting the people throwing breads, channas and other human food stuff to these monkeys on roadsides. The Manda area is a live example just under the nose of the department of wildlife to begin with. The department's campaign should not be confined to an official routine exercise.
