Thailand Is Trying to Solve Its Monkey Problem With a Mass Neutering

Thailand has a monkey problem. The nation famous for its primate residents has recently had to deal with a rogue group of 200 highly aggressive monkeys that took over a police station in the town of Lopburi in central Thailand. A few years prior, that same town instituted a sterilization campaign to fight back, a campaign that clearly didn’t work too well.

But rather than killing the monkeys, which many in Thailand hold sacred, the nation’s capital, Bangkok, has announced that it will be neutering up to 100 macaques as part of an ongoing effort to control population numbers.

Last year, 122 macaques were sterilized in Bangkok’s Bang Khun Thian district, with another hundred scheduled to get snipped in the next month. There are currently around 330 macaques spread around three different parts of the Bang Khun Thian district, with the highest concentration at the Ua Samae Dam Arthorn estate housing 136 macaques.

The Department of National Parks, Wildlife, and Plant Conservation (DNP) is leading the sterilization program, and wants to make everybody aware that they are trying to foster a sense of peaceful coexistence between humans and macaques. The initiative has three phases broken up into short, medium, and long-term plans.

The short-term plan involves setting up designated feeding stations that keep the macaques from wandering into residential areas. The medium-term plan is to continue sterilizing the monkeys and registering them so they can be tracked.

In the long term, the district wants to relocate them to a city-owned plot of land developed into a conservation center that’s going to need a lot more money and manpower if it’s going to be completed.

I get a kick writing story after story about Thailand’s absurd issues with its monkey population, but credit where credit is due — they could easily turn into gun-toting monsters exterminating monkeys left and right to wash their hands of the whole thing. But these people clearly have a genuine respect for the animals that share their home.

They seem to understand that these monkeys are not invading their home, but rather they invaded the monkeys’ home and thus need to respect their fellow residents. In a world that seems increasingly unempathetic and callous, it’s nice to see such care and mindfulness.