PHNOM PENH (AFP) – A gang of big, "sharp-toothed"
monkeys have been caught at a Phnom Penh temple as part of a crackdown
on the unruly animals after a spate of attacks on visiting tourists, a
zoo official said on Friday.
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| Silvered langurs monkeys climb a tree in Mondulkiri, Cambodia. A gang of big, "sharp-toothed" monkeys have been caught at a Phnom Penh temple as part of a crackdown on the unruly animals after a spate of attacks on visiting tourists, a Cambodian zoo official says. |
"Phnom Penh authorities asked us to remove the violent monkeys from the
temple... The guards there said many visitors had been bitten by big
monkeys," Nhek Rattanak Pich, director of Phnom Tamao Zoo and rescue
centre, told AFP.
Veterinarians from the zoo tranquilised 13 macaques at the Wat Phnom
pagoda on Tuesday and Friday and the operation is set to continue.
The temple is crowded with some 200 semi-tame macaques who occasionally
cause havoc when they stray towards nearby homes and hotels, tearing
tiles off roofs, destroying laundry and making off with items left lying
around.
Cambodian police have described the macaques as "gangster" monkeys in
the past after a failed attempt to trap them with eggs laced with
sleeping pills. Authorities even put a $250 bounty on several of the
animals' heads.
A violent 20-kilogram (44-pound) monkey was shot dead in 2008 at the temple after it attacked visitors.
Pich said blood samples from the monkeys would be tested to check for
diseases before the animals are sent either to the zoo or freed in
remote forests near Tonle Sap lake, far away from the capital.
Source: AFP
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