I went with Danny to what is commonly referred to as the Tuti Kandi Zoo, but which is actually called the Rescue & Rehabilitation Home and Monkey Sterilization Centre. It’s located in Tuti Kandi, a village just outside Shimla, and it was a zoo, once upon a time, but now houses rescued and captured leopards, Himalayan bears, and rhesus macaques. In bare-bones cages with concrete floors live about a dozen bears and four leopards, which were brought in injured and subsequently treated by the resident vet. If the animal heals within a short period of time, it is released back into the wild, but if the recovery period is longer, it has to stay at the center, as they have no facilities to help the animal become re-accustomed to the wild. So a number of bears and leopards are permanently housed at the center, because of concern that once the animals have become used to contact with humans and human-provided food, they will seek out human habitats instead of staying away from villages.
Depending on how many monkeys are captured, as many as two dozen or more are sterilized every day. Danny observed the sterilization process, during which the doctor uses a laser to make a small incision in the macaque’s abdomen, then uses a small camera to show him just where to make the cuts. During the procedure, I remained in the prep room. I watched assistants bring in knocked-out monkeys and pile them on every space inch of counter space. Meanwhile, one assistant applied an antibacterial solution to the monkeys’ bellies, and then made quick work of their fur with a shaving blade. The monkeys were then transferred to a table by the operation room, where they waited their turn to be sterilized. At one point, I was surrounded by about ten monkeys, their eyes half-closed and their gaping mouths showing off sharp teeth.
Before and after sterilization, the monkeys are housed in a building filled with rows of small cages. Some care is taken to keep mothers with their babies or seemingly related juveniles together. It’s not the best of facilities, and the monkeys express a range of emotions about being kept there, from despondency and depression (some lean listlessly against the sides of their cages or lie on the uncomfortable mesh bars that line the floors) to fear and anger (making threat faces at humans or screaming at each other). Many monkeys carry fresh wounds, from being transported to the center in a small cage with several other monkeys – or from their human captors who aren’t exactly gentle with them. One large male had lost the tip of one of his fingers, while another smaller male had lost an entire portion of his face: his lip was ripped open and his nose was all but missing. Others had gashes in their backs or arms.
While I understand the potential good that sterilizing the monkeys will do, it’s hard to see them in such squalid facilities, crying, scared, and huddling with babies or friends. It’s partially a lack of money and partially a lack of proper animal-handling knowledge or training – or perhaps simply a lack of respect for the monkeys. Any animal rights group would have a field day with the center, as they probably would with any place in India that houses animals, including the zoos. I have to remember that the center is doing what it can to reduce the area’s monkey problem and, being that it is a government-run program, that it can only provide bare-bones care and facilities.
Bringing the monkeys to the center is a process that involves a lot of patience. Danny and I followed the resident animal catcher as he and his team of three young Nepali men went about the business of trapping macaques. The boys start by setting up a large metal cage, which has a trap door at one end and a small gate on the side. One of them is put on trap door duty, and he sits at a distance, holding the twine that allows the door to drop when the time comes. Another one of the boys scatters foodstuffs – bread, bananas, peanuts – in the cage and in the surrounding area. He calls to the monkeys as he does this, saying, “Leh, leh,” or “Au, au,” which are, apparently, known ways to get the attention of the monkeys.
Then the waiting begins. Everyone stands back, while the monkeys investigate. In the villages, where it’s more wooded, the monkeys are harder to trap because they are more wary. We watched some rural macaques hesitantly approach the cage and the food, then take off at the slightest sign of something suspicious. In the city, it’s easier to catch the monkeys because they’ve grown soft and lazy with the easy access to food afforded them by humans. Food is abundant in garbage dumpsters and littered along the side of the road, and humans are easy enough targets for the stealing of bananas or ice cream cones. No danger is too risky for a city monkey who really wants to fill his cheek pouches with peanuts.
Sometimes one monkey enters the cage, or even two or three or more. Then the boy drops the door, which falls with a terrific crash. The monkeys freak out, bouncing off the cage walls or going to the smaller door and trying to pull it open. The guys put a small cage next to the large one and open the small door for the monkeys to go through. Using long sticks to encourage them toward the door (these three were actually rather gentle with the monkeys), the monkeys eventually find their way into the small cage. Then the large door is pulled back up, and the process begins again. One early morning, we watched about a dozen monkeys get captured in this way, while the rest of the troop watched anxiously from the surrounding trees and the government building behind us.
Meanwhile, the captured monkeys, who are understandably frightened, fight amongst themselves – especially if a large make is being held captive with several lower-ranking macaques – but eventually simply huddle together and poop. (When they finally moved the small cage full of monkeys, there was a huge pile of droppings left on the ground.) In the village, one female was so scared, she opened her mouth and began vigorously patting her cheeks, releasing all the food she’d been storing in her pouches. In the city, however, the monkeys continued to eat, despite their fear.
When they feel they have caught enough monkeys, the small cages are loaded into the back of their truck, and the cage is dismantled. Then it’s off to the next location to collect more monkeys.
When it’s time to return the macaques to their habitats, post-sterilization, they are once again stuffed into small cages and driven back to where they were caught. In an unceremonious procedure, the cages are opened one by one, and the frightened monkeys bolt from the van as fast as their little feet can carry them. They rejoin their troops, where they probably have to spend some time sorting out rank
It’s a fascinating process. But is sterilization working? Of the nearly five hundred monkeys living up at Jakhu, the monkey trappers caught about forty – that’s less than ten percent that are being preventing from further breeding. The sterilization program has been going on for five years, and we still see just as many infants and juveniles as we do adults. Dogs, on the other hand, seem to not be producing as many puppies, as we have only seen four little ones and maybe a hundred adults the entire time we’ve been here. This may be because dog sterilization is handled by the Municipal Corporation, while monkey sterilization is the duty of the Forrestry Department, which is spread much more thinlyover its jurisdiction. I know Danny wants to come back sometime soon to do further investigation into whether the sterilization process can be successful at reducing the monkey population.
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