Langur photos fail to scare away monkeys, authority to hire catchers

Authority will float a tender to hire professional monkey catchers.The captured simians will be released into the forest area, officials said

Following complaints from several high-rise societies in Noida about the monkey menace, the Noida Authority recently put up posters and cutouts of grey langurs at one society as an experiment to scare away the simians. But the experiment fell flat, and the Noida authority is now in the process of hiring professional monkey catchers.

A langur poster put up at Gulshan Botnia society in Sector 144, Noida (HT Photo)

“On January 29, we put up eight posters of grey langurs at Gulshan Botnia society in Sector 144, after residents there complained that a troop of about 25 monkeys have been creating havoc on the premises. Although we managed to capture about four monkeys in the first week of January, the problem persisted, following which we decided to resort to using posters of langur. But the experiment failed,” said SP Singh, deputy general manager (health), Noida authority.

Officials are in the process of drawing up an estimate to float a tender to hire professional monkey catchers, he said.

“We will float a tender to hire professional monkey catchers.The captured simians will be released into the forest area. We hope that it will put an end to the menace faced by high-rise societies,” said Singh.

Over the past two months, residents of Gulshan Botnia apartments in Sector 144 said there have been several monkey sightings at their society.

“A tribe of 25 monkeys have terrorised the nearly 3,000 residents of our society. They barge into our homes and leave behind a trail of destruction. Residents return from work to find their homes ransacked, and food items strewn across the floor and furniture overturned,” said Harish Sharma, a resident of the society.

Over the past month, several monkey bite incidents have also been reported from the society, residents said.

“Last month, my septuagenarian father was taking walk in the society park when a monkey bit him on his leg. Following the incident, all residents have stopped going to the park now. At least four security guards of our society have been bitten by monkeys in the past month,” said Shailesh Tripathi,another resident.

The residents said they complained to authority about the menace. “The authority was unable to catch the monkeys and they asked us to put up posters of langur across the buildings to scare away the monkeys. Generally, grey langurs frighten off monkeys. The Delhi Government had resorted to a similar experiment during the G20 Summit last year,” said Tripathi.

At Sector 75, residents of Gardenia Gateway society have also put up posters of langurs.

“Since the last 17 days, an aggressive monkey has been visiting our society and tries to enter our homes. First we tried to get rid of him by hiring a professional catcher, but we could not get hold of him. Later, we decided to put up posters of langur to scare him off, but that also didn’t work,” said Rakesh Kumaria, general secretary of the society’s social welfare association.

The residents are now pinning their hopes on the monkey catchers that the authority is planning to hire.