Urban Menace: Focus on human-monkey conflict management

The number of species under the umbrella of ‘urban wildlife’ is constantly increasing. Fragmenting habitat, poor urban planning and ill-informed practices are leading to rapid changes in animal behaviour and  ecology, which in turn is affecting how communities interact with them.

Models of fortress conservation and protection have led to our collective efforts being restricted to charismatic  megafauna, in “protected areas” while largely ignoring human-wildlife interactions around urban dwellings. 

Human-macaque interaction in India, like in several South Asian countries, has the undercurrent of religion and reverence. However, news of conflict manifests in the media as cases of bites in urban India, crop damage in rural areas and harassment of tourists.

Invariably, macaques are portrayed as a threat, haphazardly trapped in large numbers and translocated to large holding areas masquerading as sanctuaries in places like New Delhi.

Or, they are made part of mass sterilisation programmes with no demonstrable effect on conflict, such as in Himachal Pradesh. In some cases, communities end up killing macaques cruelly, as seen recently in Karnataka.

Age-old, reactive interventions, such as unscientific relocation, sheltering or retaliatory culling are inflicted upon macaques. But hardly anything is written or spoken about the ‘human’ element of the human-macaque conflict, or the ills of these interventions in meaningfully addressing this issue.  

In cities, this is mostly an anthropogenic issue with our changing practices, poor policies, and misplaced compassion to blame. Our cities are a haven for commensal species such as macaques who thrive on the involuntary and supplemental feeding provided by residents and food businesses. 

When a lone macaque, or a group of two to three are initially spotted in a residential colony, most citizens respond by providing left-over food or fruits to these primates as their ‘offering’, or as a sign of kindness.

This is supplemented by abysmal solid waste management practices most residential colonies such as apartments have, where macaques have ready access to a high calorie diet.

As days pass and more food is voluntarily supplied to macaques, owing to their social structure, they invariably start thinking of humans as subordinate to them.

The troop size continues to burgeon, proportional to the food resource available, until it reaches a tipping point where macaques start snatching food from residents when not provided voluntarily, or they start breaking into homes to steal a meal.

The residents who fostered and incubated this problem over time, find themselves in the grip of this ‘conflict’ and now want the macaques gone. 

Residents often reach out to poorly equipped, and even poorly trained wildlife managers or private ‘monkey catchers’ who trap these macaques ad-hoc and relocate them to ‘forests’, which they believe to be suitable habitats.

The inherent bias to believe that these city-bred macaques should live in a forest owing to the simple reason that they are macaques spells not only their doom, but also does not solve the issue of conflict.

Translocation of animals in conflict, while may seem humane, is detrimental to the macaques and far worse for communities as it just ‘shifts’ the conflict from one place to another, while leaving a vacuum in the place they were trapped from — which, soon enough, will be occupied by another troop and the cycle continues.

There are startling examples from central government offices where rhesus macaques have been fed and fostered until the tipping point, at which point Hanuman langurs are illegally confined in a poor attempt to deter macaques. 

The underlying drivers of conflict in cities, combined with habitat fragmentation, are poor solid waste management practices, supplemental feeding by citizens, indiscriminate dumping of leftovers by restaurants and inadequate capacity of wildlife managers to proactively manage interactions between humans and urban wildlife.  

The historical narrative that wild animals need to be protected instead of conserved has rendered it exclusive, linear, and drawn the line in the sand between communities and wildlife managers.

Owing to this, the burden of managing conflict is almost entirely placed on the state forest departments who need so much more capacity building in both the science, and field skills of conflict management.

As a result, conflict is always approached on the backfoot, with an attempt of ‘solving’ it, which invariably takes the shape of relocating or permanent housing of macaques in conflict.  

The reality is that human-macaque conflict isn’t an issue that can be ‘solved’ in its simplest meaning of the word. Constantly capturing and relocating macaques or sterilising them or even attempting to house them in large enclosures for life will not solve the problem.

Attempting to address conflict with these interventions is akin to applying a band-aid to a fractured limb with an open wound — you may treat the wound but won’t fix the fracture.  

For as long as there are people and macaques sharing space and resources, there is bound to be interaction between the two.

The need of the hour is for agencies such as state forest departments to work in conjunction with municipalities, education department and department of health and family welfare to:

1. Execute planned media campaigns that actively discourage people from feeding macaques around their homes or tourist sites

2. Encourage resident welfare associations to have robust, end-to-end solid waste management practices in place

3. Introduce curriculum on humane living in schools that preach empathy and actual compassion

4. Educate citizens on their own behaviour around troops of macaques

5. Encourage adoption of humane practices that prevent macaques from entering homes

6. Have science-backed, humane and non-invasive population management programs

7. Have dedicated personnel that periodically and proactively remind communities of their role in conflict prevention

8. Have rapid redressal systems that will prevent retaliatory killing or injuring of macaques

9. Encourage citizens to have honest and open conversations with the children of their community on how they conduct themselves around macaques, just as they would speak with children on looking  both sides before crossing a road.

Read more:

Out of control: why monkeys are a menace

This article is part of a cover story first published in the 16-30 June, 2023 print edition of Down To Earth

Sumanth Bindumadhav is director, wildlife protection, Humane Society International/India

Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth

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