Villagers unite to sort out the monkey menace in Anakapalli district of Andhra Pradesh

The trapped monkeys have been saved in an enclosure at Aratlakota, 105 km from Visakhapatnam.
| Picture Credit score: SPECIAL ARRANGMENT

Almost 5,000 residents of the tiny Aratlakota village in Anakapalli district, 105 km from Visakhapatnam, have all come collectively to efficiently sort out the monkey menace of their village by designing a correct motion plan.

Individuals introduced it to the eye of village sarpanch P. Appalanarsa a number of instances, and he or she had addressed the general public difficulty in a gathering held with the officers of the respective departments in April, 2022. It was then determined to ship the monkeys to secure locations and name for tenders for doing the job.

Three businesses specialising in monkey trapping participated within the tenders. One Govinda Aggiramudu of Korukonda (Rajahmundry), who provided the bottom worth of ₹330 per animal was assigned the duty.

Aggiramudu’s workforce began catching monkeys from the second week of December. They’ve to date caught round 300 monkeys utilizing scientific strategies. Later, within the presence of forest officers, the animals have been launched into the dense forest of Pandenduva Mailu, which is positioned about 12 miles from Paderu.

Talking to The Hindu, Sarpanch Appalanarsa, an alumnus of Andhra College’s Division of Botany, stated, “All of the residents of the village didn’t ask me in regards to the restore works of roads, avenue lights or any others. All of them voiced just one public downside, which was the monkey menace. It has been essentially the most critical difficulty in our village for years. With the cooperation of the elders and folks, we determined to resolve the issue. We lastly despatched greater than 300 monkeys into the dense forest and are intently monitoring the remaining 50 to 100 monkeys.”

A resident of the village Arjun stated that his daughter Aksha was injured in a monkey assault within the first week of December. “She is our solely daughter. We rushed her to the hospital the place the medical doctors stated there was no hurt. Every single day at the very least one particular person goes to the hospital with accidents inflicted by the monkeys. Now, we’re getting some reduction,” he added.

Aggiramudu stated that the villagers cooperated in catching the monkeys.

“We used bananas, groundnuts and peas amongst different fruits and nuts to draw the monkeys,” a monkey catcher stated.

When contacted, Payakaraopeta Forest Part Officer Lakkoju Vijay Kumar instructed The Hindu that on the directions of the forest officers, they guided the monkey catching workforce and assisted them in the course of the launch of the monkeys at night time close to Paderu.