Whereas there is no such thing as a official quantity, scientists estimate there are roughly 3 million toque macaques in Sri Lanka.
| Photograph Credit score: StephenBridger

In a bid to deal with Sri Lanka’s “monkey menace”, a Sri Lankan tutorial is testing out intrauterine units (IUDs) on feminine macaques, to probably management the inhabitants of the specie generally discovered within the island nation.

Whereas there is no such thing as a official quantity, scientists estimate there are roughly 3 million toque macaques within the nation. Final yr, the Sri Lankan authorities resumed issuing shotguns to farmers, amid mounting complaints of significant harm to crops by wild animals. The federal government’s transfer got here after it scrapped an earlier proposal to export monkeys to China that was widely criticised by conservationists.

The continued experiment seeks to adapt intrauterine units (IUDs), an more and more in style long-term contraception methodology for people — upon insertion into the lady’s uterus, an IUD prevents being pregnant — to the monkey species. Use of the system on animals is simply at an experimental stage, in response to Prof. Ashoka Dangolla, a senior veterinary scientist hooked up to the College of Peradeniya, in Sri Lanka’s central Kandy district, who’s main the experiment.

“We match the IUDs in eight monkeys about three months in the past and are monitoring their response. The subsequent stage would require introducing sexually mature male monkeys. If the female and male monkeys mate with them, we might have the ability to examine if the feminine monkeys get pregnant. The third stage can be a subject trial,” he informed The Hindu.

Prof. Dangolla has been concerned in varied neighborhood initiatives to deal with the monkey inhabitants for some 15 years now. “It takes a few years for [birth control] surgical procedures in male monkeys to start impacting the inhabitants,” he stated. For his ongoing experiment, he used common IUDs sourced from India, after resizing them domestically to be used on the monkeys. “To finish the experiment, I would want extra assist,” he stated, including that there’s at the moment little authorities backing for his experiment. 

In the meantime, specialists stay sceptical of contraception measures on animals, which were tried in different contexts. Wolfgang Dittus, a famend primatologist based mostly in Sri Lanka, who has been learning the island’s toque macaques for over half a century contended that contraception takes a few years to have an effect on inhabitants discount, and that it’s neither fascinating nor sensible to seize and deal with all monkeys.

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Whereas noting that the continued experiment was of curiosity, he stated related experiments on free-ranging monkeys in Asia have proven that it’s efficient provided that contraception is mixed with a legally imposed strict ban on feeding wild monkeys, since entry to human meals fuels monkey survival, beginning charges, immigration, and the ensuing inhabitants development.

Additional, lowering the monkey inhabitants won’t essentially cut back the human-monkey battle, in his view. “Sri Lanka must suppose out of the field, implement new methods for high quality dwelling. Issuing weapons to farmers to kill wildlife is clearly not a cogent resolution to any present challenges. Plantations and crops may be protected against loss to wildlife, but it surely requires a receptive tradition for implementing novel strategies of doing agriculture in coexistence with nature,” Mr. Dittus stated.