MAYILADUTHURAI: Little did a team of Forest Department personnel with the Sirkazhi range, who went down to Sithamalli -- a village some 20 km away from Mayiladuthurai -- on Wednesday to act on complaints of monkey menace, expect to be pitted against a hundred of the simians.
While the issue has been existent for the past five years, villagers say the trouble from rogue monkeys has now grown beyond what they can put up with. S Kowsalya, a resident of Manaveli Theru in the village said, "It is hard to even traverse the street without running into the rogue monkeys. We fear for the children as the monkeys target those with food items.
Women are hesitant to step out, let alone go for MGNREGA work daily." K Thaiyalnayagi, another resident said, "The monkeys have gone rogue enough to break into our houses and steal food from our kitchens when we are away. There is no firm action from our panchayat or the local administration despite having raised the issue." Having had enough of the simians, villagers complained to the district administration this past Monday, following which it approached the Forest Department for action.
Accordingly, a team of personnel with the Sirkazhi forest range headed to Sithamalli with a couple of animal cages on Wednesday only to be struck back by the quantum of menace. Department personnel said two cages are all they possess to deal with around a hundred monkeys. Sirkazhi Forest Range Officer A Joseph Daniel told TNIE,
“The monkeys seem to have become accustomed to people feeding them food and then became greedy to the point of snatching food from them. The village is surrounded by a lot of eucalyptus trees for the monkeys to dwell on. We are working to catch as many as we can and release them into the wilderness near Kodiyakarai or some other forest."