THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The last 10 days have ‘up’ended the lives of U R Udayalal, S Ajithan, Suji George, and K S Mithun. The quartet – attendants of Thiruvananthapuram Zoo – were tasked with searching for the elusive female gray langur, after it went missing from its enclosure on June 12. Finally, on Wednesday evening, the four-year-old animal was spotted languishing atop a tamarind tree near Mascot Hotel.
Udayalal looks forlorn as he keeps a close watch on the langur from the rooftop of the nearby KTDC office. When on the ground, Udayalal and his colleagues are forced to crane their necks skyward to continue spotting it.
His attempts to entice the animal with fruits – that are tied to a string and hurled before it – have been unsuccessful. The langur has been relishing the sour and sweet taste of the tamarind and its tender shoots.
The Poojappura native is a worried man when the crows go silent. “The birds hovering over the spot keep our spirits up. This is an indication the animal is still around. The power lines and the possibility of the animal coming into contact with them have us deeply concerned,” Udayalal tells TNIE.
While the zookeepers try to devise ways to get the monkey back in the zoo premises, just 200 metres away, they are joined by passersby keen to spot the gray langur. Now, tasked with monitoring the movement of the animal, they relish the company.
We have been instructed to keep a close watch so as to ensure that the animal does not land in further trouble, says Ajithan. Suji adds that the monkey has been keeping calm and has not, thus far, displayed any sense of fear or frustration, which could lead to a change in attitude.
“Monkeys are very intelligent, but even I was awestruck when the animal gathered a bunch of leaves to collect rainwater, to quench her thirst,” said Suji. Mithun, who sounds the most confident, is hoping to nab the monkey at the earliest. But he is a tad disappointed with a section of the media blaming them for the delay.
“In previous instances, monkeys that had escaped their enclosures have returned. But this gray langur has been giving us a hard time,” he says. Zoo curator Sangeetha Mohan said the four zookeepers, with two of them on a single shift, have been assigned to keep tabs on the gray langur round the clock.
Futile attempts