Dr. Banarsi Lal
In India, a third of the world’s wild Rhesus macaques (common monkey) live.Lack of availability of food sources in the forests and drying up of water bodies are the reasons for migration of monkeys in to human habitation.The struggle of monkeys for food ,water and space has expanded beyond the forest areas.The life expectancy of monkeys increased due to their proximity to villages and cities as they get assured food and safety in villages thereby get better chances of survival.Irresponsible feeding the monkeys has aggravated the monkey menace. Monkeys are wreaking havoc in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. Their burgeoning population and habitat shift from forests to towns has created a new level of man-animal conflict in this hilly UT. Monkeys damage the crops and leave farmers grappling with losses that have badly affected J&K economy thus affecting the livelihood of the farmers. Increasing human-animal conflicts are posing enormous threat to food insecurity for small resource poor hilly areas farmers living in and around traditional forest areas. Hilly areas farmers are mainly have five major problems viz. dwindling water resources and dry spells, invasion by exotic weeds like Lantana and Parthenium in pastures and grazing lands, Rhesus monkey menace and marketing issues due to difficult terrains that have affected the livelihood of farmers, leading to large scale migration and leaving families dependent on state-subsidised food rations. The worst sufferer of monkey menace are hilly states/UT viz. Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttarakhand. Nevertheless, other states like Rajasthan, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Bihar and Delhi are also struggling to contain assaults by monkeys. The menace has now reached epic proportions with estimated loss of more than 3000 crores in India, While, in Himachal Pradesh direct and indirect damage to farm produce is estimated to around Rs.1000 crore annually. In the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir about 250 villages in Jammu lose farm produce worth about Rs 33 crore every year because of attacks by wild monkeys. But it is strongly believed that exact estimates are much higher, around 300 – 500 crores and like Uttarakhand many village residents opt to sell their farmlands than grow crops in Reasi, Udhampur, Jammu, Samba, Kathua, Ramban, Rajouri, and Poonch districts. Besides damaging crops, over hundred people are bitten by monkeys every day and this results in huge expenditure on vaccines for the victims to avoid transmission of many other disease germs like the Herpes B virus10 due to such conflicts. Unlike other countries, the Indians have many religious and traditional beliefs about monkeys and their killing is not desired, but frequent conflicts have affected the traditional bond between man and monkey. The current methods of dealing with monkey menace are inefficient and only contributed to further accelerating the problem. Challenges remain to develop efficient management and conservation strategies to resolve the man-monkey conflicts. Behavioural ecologists find several issues with translocations of monkey as a solution, while sterilisation programmes did not meet expected results in Himachal Pradesh. A pilot project on oral contraceptives in a 20 square km area of the tree-lined institute, studying monkey behaviour and food habits is being attempted. Initial results have been found satisfactory and the scientists are confident that the contraceptive will keep the runaway monkey population down. Traditional and conventional ways are continued to remain crucial for the farmers in hilly region who are still practicing string to through stones (Gulail) and noise making methods like drum beating and firecrackers etc. to manage the monkey menace.
Present practices of crop protection from monkey menace and wild animals:
The following measures aretaken in crop protection from monkeys and wild animals:
Manually guarding the fields: To protect the crops, farmers deploy labours during day and night or if fields are small, farmers on their own protect the crops. Farmers use crackers, gun fires for scaring away the monkeys / wild animals. Cost of labour is very high due to shortage of labour. Deployment of labour to guard field crops from monkey menace do not always guarantee 100% protection of crops due to human limitations of functioning in difficult terrain & adverse weather and night hours.
Crop diversification :To avoid crop damage from monkey menace and wild animals, many farmers have changed their cropping pattern from traditional crops which are generally consumed by monkeys to newer crops like aloe vera, ginger, garlic, turmeric, marigold, medicinal and aromatic plants, which are not consumed / damaged by monkeys.Value addition in floriculture and lemongrass are opening new avenues of income and employment for the farmers of hilly areas. of
Sterilising monkey to control population: HP Forest Department is undertaking sterilization of monkeys in Shimla, Hamirpur, Kangra and Unadistricts to control the monkey population. Till December 2013, a total of 77,280 monkeys were sterilised.H.P. Forest Department is leading the innovative programme of monkey sterilization to control the ever increasing population of monkeys. Four Monkey Sterilization Centres (MSCs) located at Tutikandi (Shimla), Sastar (Hamirpur), Gopalpur (Kangra) and Boul (Una) are operative in the State. The sterilization in males is done through thermocautericcoagulative vasectomy and in females through endoscopic thermocauterytubectomy. The impact of monkey sterilization programme in stabilizing the monkey population is visible in many pockets of the State. The full impact of sterilization on monkey population shall be discernible in future when sterilization of considerable monkey population shall be achieved.
The Solution:
While number of alternatives are practiced by farmers and government to protect the crops from damage by monkeys and wild animals, none of these assure 100% success in crop protection. A new technique of power fencing is seen as ultimate solution. The solar powered fence electrifies the fence with pulsating current and these pulses are the “shock” felt by an animal that touches an electrified fence. Unlike a conventional fence, an electric fence is a psychological barrier such that animals learn to respect the fence. Any periphery can be solar
fenced, though the cost differs with respect to the area to be fenced.
The Solar Power Fencing Technology:
The fence is like barbed wire fencing with multiple strands of plain wires and metal/cement/wooden posts to hold the strands in position. The wires carry high voltage current. The Solar Power Fence gives a sharp, short but a non-lethal shock to the intruder and creates psychological fear, against any tampering. The alarm incorporated in the system gets activated and alert the inmates of the protected area. These are tailor made fences and can be designed according to customer needs and site condition.
Human and Animal safety
The electric shock is completely safe and non-lethal for human and animals. The animal / human touching the fence will keep himself away from the fence. As current is pulsating (not live) and passing at every 1 to 1.2 second and only for amilli-second (1000th of second) of time,the animal gets enough time to get away from the fence. The pulsating current will not grab the animal which generally happens in continuous current which causes contraction of muscles / cramps and prevent the animal from moving away from the fence leading to electrocution. In solar fencing, even if an animal is trapped in the fence, after 10 consecutive shocks the system will trip and hooter will sound so that farmer can intervene and no death causes. Further, the wire used in the fencing is plain (not barbed wire) the animals will not be trapped in the fence. Further, on touching the fence by any animal a hooter will sound to alertthe farmer so that human intervention can be made to free the animal. A warning board is placed at 10 m interval to caution the human about power fencing. If someone cuts the fence wire a security alarm will sound to alert the farmer for intervention. Two alarms are provided to ensure sounding of alarms in case one is failed. Before installing the system on its farm, Dr. YSPUHF, Nauni, Solan had obtained a certificate from Medical College, Bangalore to the effect that the shock from solar fencing is safe. All the safety features need to insisted from the company installing the fencing. Certificates from competent authority regarding human/ animal safety of energizer may be insisted from the executing company.
Monkey Repellent
Monkeys can be expelled by the direct simulation on their central nerves, through the sonic/ultrasonic wave. The sonic/ultrasonic wave attacks the auditory and nervous system of pests causing pain and discomfort. The only high-powered ultrasonic monkey repeller with special “Multiplex Modulated Sweeping Ultrasonic Sounds” available in India. These high intensity ultrasonic sound waves (10-65 KHz) are out of the range of hearing of humans and most household pets, except pests. These nerve-crushing sounds directly penetrate their brain and nervous systems and make them uneasy and act abnormally-such as frantic jumping, stampeding which result in the voluntary repulsion against ultrasonic wave areas and monkeys find it impossible to stay in such radiated areas. The monkey repeller device can get rid of monkey menace and nuisance effectively. Ultrasonic wave causes great pain and discomfort to monkeys but does no harm to humans.
(The writer is Chief Scientist and Head of KVK Reasi SKUAST-J).
