Delhi: Monkeys on the Payroll

For a mere $19 a month in bananas, larger langur monkeys are being used by the Indian government to chase away smaller rhesus monkeys that are causing problems at tourist sites and temples. The rhesus monkeys are also crowding around the entrance to a new subway and need to be chased away.

We take a lot for granted in this country. We don't have the fights with wildlife that other places do. I remember being in New Delhi and being told of the family of monkeys that live in the museum for the last few hundred years. We just don't have these problems.

The thought of monkeys in the lobby of an office building is cute, I'll admit. But you don't know these buggers. They throw things at you, try to steal your food and water bottles, and enjoy causing trouble. Then they laugh at you. Try dealing with that every time you enter your building.

So in bringing in other monkeys, the Indian government is setting itself up for trouble, I think. Who's to say that THOSE monkeys won't start to be a nuisance?

This reminds me of the wild elephants terrorizing villages in Africa. American animal rights people want those elephants to be safe from being killed. But then none of their children have been stomped to death by an elephant living on the edge of town.

There's a lot to be taken for granted in how we've tamed our wildlife. Sometimes I think we should let 1000 elephants loose in California and see how wildlife-friendly they are then.