THERE have been a number of letters of late supporting the argument that there is a significant increase in the frequency, in recent years, of the nuisance, inconvenience, damage and mess caused by invading troops of monkeys in a variety of different residential areas.
In addition to tales of damage to garden produce, articles on the web tell of extreme and hence costly damage to farming crops.
On the other hand there are letters from rescuers telling readers that the monkey numbers are reducing drastically due to confrontation with humans or the encroachment of humanity on the monkey’s natural habitat.
At no time has there been any evidence in the way of statistics supporting the claim that the numbers of vervet monkeys are indeed reducing.
The only figures I have seen indicate that 151 unfortunate monkeys met their end over a period of six recent weeks.
I assume that this figure to be but a low percentage of the total number of monkeys in the area as I would imagine that the killings are more individual losses to any troop rather than mass assassinations.
Rather than working on hearsay I think it would help if, instead of simply making bald general unsupported statements that monkey numbers are “decreasing alarmingly”, those people believing numbers are reducing actually came out with statistics to substantiate that argument, in other words the statistics on which their belief is based.
At the end of the day, however, there are clearly many people who, while certainly not supporting the killing of these animals, would support any measure which would reduce the inconveniences, nuisances and damage they experience as an incontrovertible increase in recent years of monkeys invading their homes.
Reg Hunn
Macfarlane Drive
