Locked behind bars, nearly 1,000 srieking macaques are working themselves into a feverish frenzy. Gangs of former street macaques have seen their upcoming feast, and are vying for prime positions.
Moments later, the rangers enter and the screaming animals pounce. Like swarming rats, they wander over each other to grasp their prize; within seconds, the banana, jelly and Yakult crates are empty.
Until recently, these chaotic scenes were unfolding not behind steel mesh but across the center of Lopburi, a Thai town about 100 miles north of Bangkok where marauding macaques ruled the streets.
Known as the “Monkey City”, the animals have been central to Lopburi’s identity and are an attraction for curious tourists. As their numbers grew, the long-suffering locals rose up.
Homes and people were under more attack; shops were closed on the dark, gray high street after businesses relocated to avoid the stagnation. The town’s mayor described Lopburi as an almost “abandoned town”.
Then, in March, the final straw: a man was knocked off his moving motorcycle by hungry macaques hunting for food, and a woman was knocked over and her knee dislocated.
“The conflict between humans and monkeys increased, we had to act,” Suttipong Kaemtubtim, director of wildlife conservation at the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation (DNP), told the Telegraph.
“The original issue was monkey overpopulation, but they were going into houses, stealing from shops, from cars, from people’s hands. They were causing accidents – the number of motorcycle incidents involving monkeys increased. So we had to step in to control the situation.”
In late April, the government announced a three-phase peace plan to capture, sterilize and rehome the majority (though not all) of the macaques. So far, nearly 1,200 have been arrested by a police “monkey unit”, using tropical fruit as bait to herd the monkeys into mesh relocation crates.
Although the ultimate goal is to release the macaques in a 3,000-acre sanctuary-like space, for now, they are being taken to large cages scattered throughout the city. This includes the ‘Monkey Garden’ in the south-western suburbs of Lopburi, where three fully enclosed cages house around 300 of the lively monkeys who have wandered in at feeding time.
Catching and transporting the macaques here was no mean feat, Mr Suttipong said, especially as many of Lopburi’s street gangs needed to be separated.
“There is a class system in monkey society. At the top of each gang with the best status will be a larger male monkey and his entourage. And then stronger younger monkeys can fight to move up,” he explained.
“We have to capture the troops within their gangs, and put each one in a different cage to stop them from fighting each other for food and space … they are all very territorial.”
On the other side of town, a Buddhist temple has built an open-air ‘Monkey House’ enclosure (along with a viewing platform for visitors) to accommodate a further 300. When the Telegraph visited the newly completed enclosure, the strongest macaques were making their desperate bid for freedom – trying, with limited success, to scale the corrugated iron walls.
But there was a more surreal scene inside an on-site clinic, where Thai pop music was blasting on the radio. Dozens of sedated, shaved macaques line neatly across the countertops, their arms tattooed with digits describing where and when they were neutered.
“We sterilize them to combat the overpopulation issue, but we also vaccinate them against diseases like rabies that can jump to humans,” said Sunita Wingwan, a DNP veterinarian, and her colleagues at carrying two new arrivals over the room at the scruff of the DNP. her neck.
“I cover four provinces, but Lopburi has the biggest problem with macaques. Actually, she has the worst problem in Thailand,” she said.
Sterilizing the fast-breeding macaques is nothing new – around 2,600 have been neutered or spayed since 2014 (in a Buddhist society, the animals don’t have to be killed). However, locals lament that these efforts have had limited impact.
Somporn Iampin, who runs a small shop selling duck noodle soup above an ancient Khmer temple known for hosting ‘monkey buffets’ every November, said the population has spiraled out of control in the past six years.
On the shop counter is Ms. Iampin’s hamper: a wooden slingshot and two dozen clay balls. There are monkeys in this area yet to be rescued, and others still have stuffed tiger heads or electric wires on the street to scare them. Some served customers behind metal bars.
“They always cause trouble, they come into the shop, they climb on tables, they bite food,” said Miss Iampin, complaining that the new initiative was long overdue. “We don’t want to hurt them, but there are too many. They cause constant trouble.”
Supaporn Tantiwong agreed that the government had to act, and said that the density of monkeys roaming outside his shop had already decreased to clear other areas. But the 39-year-old, who runs her family’s car parts business, isn’t really against macaques, she lets children crawl for her.
“I always feed the monkeys, I think some people only realize they are aggressive when they are hungry – there is no natural food source for them here, so they have to find human food,” said Ms Tantiwong.
“I think we needed a compromise to control the population, the market and many shops in this area were closed. All we have to do is make sure that there are good conditions and plenty of food in the situations where they live,” she said. “I’m worried that the government doesn’t have enough money to take care of them properly.”
Earlier this year the mayor of Lopburi, Chamroen Salacheep said he intended to “do a big clean up around the town and paint all the buildings” once the monkey operation is finished.
Ms Tantiwong hopes that Lopburi will not lose its heart in the process.
“There is a famous story in this area, connected to the character of a monkey who protects the King in the legends,” she said. “At the end of the war, the King’s arrow came down to this city and it became the ‘Monkey City’. That is our history, that is why people visit.
“We have to control the population, but I’m glad they’re not going to take all the monkeys with them. I would miss them if they were gone.”