Photos: Monkeys run riot in Thai city; keep humans indoors
Residents remain barricaded indoors, rival gangs fight and there are no-go zones for humans. In Thailand's Lopburi, residents bemoan a monkey menace raging across the heart of this 13th-century city in the central Thai province of the same name. As monkeys run riot super-charged on junk food, their population is increasing and city authorities have turned to sterilisation in desperation aginst what was once seen as a major lure for tourists.
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A longtail macaque on top of a monkey statue in front of the Prang Sam Yod Buddhist temple in the town of Lopburi, Thailand on June 20. These fearless primates rule the streets around the Prang Sam Yod temple in the centre of the town, patrolling the tops of walls and brazenly ripping the rubber seals from car doors. (Mladen Antonov / AFP)
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Tourists interact with longtail macaques in the Prang Sam Yod Buddhist temple on June 20. Their antics had largely been tolerated as a major lure for tourists who descended on the city before the coronavirus outbreak to feed and snap selfies with the plucky animals. (Mladen Antonov / AFP)
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Longtail macaques chase a woman on a scooter in Lopburi on June 20. As foreign tourism -- Thailand’s cash cow -- seized up so did the flow of free bananas tossed their way, prodding the macaques to turn to violence. Footage of hundreds of them brawling over food in the streets went viral on social media in March, AFP noted in a report. (Mladen Antonov / AFP)
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A worker cleans a roundabout, one of the main gathering points of the longtail macaques in Lopburi on June 20. Some areas of the city have simply been surrendered to the monkeys. An abandoned cinema is the macaques’ headquarters -- and cemetery. Dead monkeys are laid to rest by their peers in the projection room in the cinema’s rear and any human who enters is attacked. (Mladen Antonov / AFP)
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