After the trampling and rampaging pachyderms, now it was the ever-elusive troops of primates who were posing a serious threat to the farmers in various parts of the state. The man -simian conflicts had, of late, taken a new height as hundreds of farmers were facing huge loss of their standing crops due to monkey menace. At their own will the monkeys with their large families and babies hung onto their mothers would regularly troop down in the agricultural fields from the adjoining forested lands and would get a field day, happily munching up vegetables, fruits and whatever eatables were available – and damaging much more in the process. Happy and stomach full- they would slip out to their forest only to return next day.
As the monkey population increases so did the problem proportionately.
The All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) took up the matter with Agriculture Director and the CPM’s farmers’ wing gave details of the monkey menace to the officials.
“This is purely a man -animal conflict. We have heard of elephant -man conflicts now it is also the man and monkey conflicts”, said AIKS leader Pabitra Kar.
He said the AIKS had demanded immediate intervention of agriculture department as the loss of the farmers were rising manifold with the ever increasing population of the simians in some parts of the state , especially Teliamura, Udaipur and Belonia. “It’s a serious problem as vast areas of standing crops are damaged by the monkeys”, Kar pointed out and said that the Director with whom they met also agreed to it.
Kar pointed out that one of the effective measures that could contain the monkeys from making their forays into the croplands was to plant mango, jackfruit and other fruit trees in the jungles. If the monkeys got their foods in tree tops they would be happy there and would not care to visit the farmlands or human habitats.
As for the wild elephant problems, Kar felt that the state government failed to restrict the elephant movements into the human habitats especially in the Atharamura hill range where hamlets did come up on the travel routes of the jumbo herds.
“ The government needs to make adequate arrangements of food for the wild elephants which are often seen entering human habitations and damaging agricultural crops”, he said adding that the problem could not be tackled only by the forest department but would require also a concerted efforts with the agriculture department.
