Residents of the ancient Thai city of Lopburi are living in fear of marauding gangs of monkeys, as thousands of primates brawl with each other, attack shops, and take over the streets in search of food during the coronavirus lockdown.
Lopburi province and the antics of its macaques have long lured hordes of foreign tourists who pose with them for selfies in exchange for free bananas.
But as tourism dried up because of the global pandemic so too did the monkeys’ food supplies, prompting a violent turn in their behaviour.
Local efforts to offer the monkey mobs some nutrition may have backfired as some say a sugary diet of fizzy drinks, cereal and sweets has fuelled the animals’ sex lives, making their population grow even more.
Hoards of starving monkeys storm Lopburi in central Thailand after the tourists who usually feed them fled due to #Coronavirus pic.twitter.com/pOuohtUIcs
— Shakthi Vadakkepat (@v_shakthi) April 9, 2020
“The more they eat, the more energy they have… so they breed more,” Pramot Ketampai, who manages the city’s Prang Sam Yod temple shrines, told AFP.
Monkeys patrol the walls of the temple, in the centre of the 800-year-old city, to protect their turf.
In March, they staged a brazen raid on another group of monkeys living around the Phra Kan Shrine, on the prowl for temple offerings.
Their invasion – captured in a video that went viral on social media – resulted in a vicious street fight that stopped traffic for ten minutes as the rival gangs screeched, charged at each other and engaged in paw-to-paw combat.
“They’re so used to having tourists feed them and the city provides no space for them to fend for themselves,” Supakarn Kaewchot, a government veterinarian told Reuters.
“With the tourists gone, they’ve been more aggressive, fighting humans for food to survive,” she said. “They’re invading buildings and forcing locals to flee their homes.”
The human population has had to continue with uneasy coexistence as parts of city cede complete control to the monkeys.
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