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Monkey feeding
The road to Ranakpur Jain temple was passing through a ghat section. Found one dead monkey on the road , must have been killed by a vehicle. I started blaming the careless driver of that unknown vehicle who has not bothered to save the life of a monkey. My driver replied saying we all are responsible for this mishap.
There are many monkeys sitting close to the road waiting for the tourist to drop banana, bread and biscuits for them. The food habit of these monkeys are changed , they no longer eat their natural food in forest and keep waiting by the side of the road expecting tourist will feed them. Even they are starving for food during the off seasons when tourist flow reduces. In some areas these monkeys are aware of timings of buses and know what time the busses passes by the areas. They reach the spot exactly in time , sometime even stops the vehicles by sitting on the road. Some generous drivers bring food especially for monkeys considering it to be a great social job. We are only responsible in changing this habit of monkeys and created this mess. Monkeys by seating by the side of hill roads not only endangered their own life but also threat to the passing vehicles. These menaces are very high in Shimla and some part of Himachal also. There are display boards requesting tourists not to feed monkeys. However in practice tourist by way of curiosity or to get rid of them drops some eatables. What happens when monkeys keep waiting for food and expecting tourist to feed them but no one does? There are incidents of monkey attacking tourist in Shimla.
What is the solution to this problem? It is easy to say don't feed them. By displaying some boards here are there nothing is going to change. The solution lies in educating the drivers , tourist by the locals. In consultation with environmentalists local solutions can be developed to save the monkeys. We are only responsible for killing monkeys on our roads.
What is your view ?
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