Word: monkey
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Most of the world's big cities face a basic set of problems: traffic, pollution, crime. Then there is Delhi, which has an urban challenge that's nearly unique: too many monkeys. Hungry rhesus macaques roam the streets and even the subway, leap through treetops outside grand government buildings and scale fences around offices and private homes, searching for open windows and accessible food. Even Delhi's police headquarters has been raided by a monkey gang...
...most of the Indian capital's 15 million residents, monkeys are as much a part of the cityscape as Mughal tombs and speeding auto rickshaws. Monkeys and humans have long coexisted in India, where Hindus consider the primates sacred. In the ancient Sanskrit epic The Ramayana, the monkey god Hanuman symbolizes wisdom, devotion, righteousness and strength. On most days, devout Hindus feed Delhi's monkeys a feast of bananas and peanuts...
...booming economy opens the country to foreign investment, floods India's cities with new workers and leaves fewer sanctuaries for the local primates, government officials are looking for ways to rein in the monkey business. A few years ago, officials in Delhi started rounding up monkeys and caging them in a large, dedicated prison on the outskirts of the city. Authorities would like to send them to forests in neighboring states, but many are refusing to accept the animals. India's Supreme Court stepped in last month, ordering that 300 entrapped monkeys be transferred to a forest in the central...
Indeed, there's little sign that the monkey menace is receding. As the monkey population has increased in recent years--owing to the growing number of urban feasts as well as to scientific laboratories that use monkeys for experiments and then abandon them--the natural balance has been thrown off kilter. Hungry monkeys attack people and snatch food when they...
Given the strains between monkey and modern man, some Indians believe the only solution is to return the animals to the wild. But even that wouldn't end the debate. Environmentalists point out that Delhi's monkeys have become urbanized and may not survive in the wild. Activists also complain that in the process of rounding up monkeys, many are injured and babies get separated from mothers. "We have to tackle this another way," says Gautam Grover, head of the protection group Animal Saviour. "We took their land, we took their trees, we took their forests, and now we just...