Plundering Monkeys on the Go
By Teodorico R. Magda teodoricomagda@yahoo.com What would happen in a place where
a big group of animals, say monkeys, spread over and occupy it in great numbers? Well, this has happened in the southern part of the Philippines. The marauders come out of the mountains by the hundreds, reported by farmers in the Negros Province, Southern Philippines, who are being besieged by marauding monkeys. The animals are going about searching for things to steal and to eat, sometimes chancing on people and animals to attack. “They are virtually impossible to drive off” observers said. The invading monkeys have been stealing staples or main crops on the fields and around unfenced houses like corn, bananas, sweet potatoes, and coconuts while farmers stand helplessly by. The destruction of forests which are the monkeys’ main habitat and food source has triggered the invasion. Consequently, this has resulted in draining of food supply for forest faunas including monkeys. The rich forests on the region, which once cover nearly some 650,000 acres in the province, have been reduced to barely 92,000 acres by logging. Other activities that have contributed to the reduction of forest covers include the “kaingin” system or the slash-and-burn system of clearing forest for staple crop production.