Adilabad Farmers Rely on Catapults To Fight Monkey Menace

 Adilabad: The monkey business is no child’s play, and yet locals of the erstwhile Adilabad district are resorting to a toy from their childhood — catapults, or ‘ghulare’ — to keep the simians away from themselves, their houses and crops. Monkey attacks are linked to at least two deaths.

It’s serious business, and expensive. Monkeys maraud through crops, causing damage worth thousands to each farmer, enter houses and bite people. In case someone is bitten, the course of treatment is similar to that of a dog bite.

Farmers have to purchase nets to keep monkeys away from their crops ripe for harvest. Hiring catchers is expensive: They charge Rs 500-Rs 1000 per animal, depending on the age of the simians. The monkey catchers are mostly from Nellore and also from Narasapur in Medak.

Villagers then hired langurs to chase away the monkeys. The simians would return when the langurs were taken away.

Farmer Marsakola Sarangarao of Mamidiguda said they were facing a lot of hardships from monkeys which are destroying their crops. The monkey menace is more prevalent in villages located on the fringes of forests.

Vendors selling boiled and roasted corn at the roadside are facing problems from monkeys at Utnoor, Indhanpalli, Udumpur, Gudihathnoor, Jannaram, Khanapur and Kadam.

The matter is so serious that locals submitted a memorandum to MLA Gaddam Vivek to take steps to control the monkey menace in Bheemaram. At Jaipur, locals took out a rally to demand that the state government take steps to control the menace in Mancherial district. All to no avail.

Monkeys hordes have damaged cotton seeds, soya and redgram, jowar, maize and groundnut, cotton, Bengal gram and other pulses. It is observed that monkeys eat 30 per cent of the crop in some areas.

India’s second monkey rescue and rehabilitation centre (MRRC) is located in Sarangapur in Nirmal district, established in December 2020 by the forest department. Costing Rs 2.25 crore, it could accommodate 150 monkeys. It was closed in July after treating about 1,000 monkeys because of the expense of running it, and a lack of animals to sterilise.

Dr Srikar Raju of the MRRC said that catching monkeys had become costly and that the centre could handle 10 monkeys a day. He said combined efforts are needed for capturing monkeys and it was not a job that individuals could handle.

Monkeys are sterilised on the condition that they are released in the same place. That, of course, means additional expense, apart from opposition from locals.

Pochera villagers collected Rs 1.3 lakh to get rid of the monkey menace in Adilabad district. The village development committees (VDCs) are not interested in spending money on capturing monkeys. In one instance, however, VDC of Narsapur of Nirmal district captured 150 monkeys.

Forest officials even got some inputs on how to control the monkey menace from Himachal Pradesh where a similar project is on since monkeys damage the apple crop.

The BRS government planned to establish mini-MRRCs to sterilise monkeys to control their population all over the state but the project did not take off.

And, hence, the demand for catapults (ghulare). Unlike in the past, when ghulare were sold only at local fairs, sellers now visit villages and sell them for Rs 40- Rs 150 apiece.

Villagers use charra (ball bearings) and sometimes pebbles in their catapults. Farmers also use catapults to chase away birds and monkeys and wild boars. Ghulares are available locally for Rs 40-Rs 50 apiece in Adilabad district.

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Monkey menace

At two persons have died in monkey-related incidents. Scores of people have sustained injuries.

Oct. 1, 2024: Bongoni Laxmi,52, died of a head injury while trying to escape a monkey in Vidyanagar Colony in Khanapur in Nirmal district. She went into a coma and died.

Feb. 12, 2020: Raisidam Jangu Bai, 65, died on the spot in the attack by a group of monkeys in Boath mandal headquarters