Why You Should Not Feed Monkeys

Problem
Children were shrieking, running after a monkey which ran up a tree. The girls were trying to feed the monkey. A boy was chasing the monkey with a stick.

I said to one of the girls: "You're are frightening it. There are twenty of you twice its size."

She replied, "I'm trying to feed it."

I said, "You shouldn't feed monkeys. They will attack you."

She retorted: "We fed it and it didn't attack us."

Days later I spoke to a security guard who said:

"Yes, we know all about the monkey. We think it got separated from a group. Lots of monkeys live on Bukit Timah. (Central Singapore.) We called the NEA. The National Environment Agency. We aren't allowed to kill it. We have to catch it and release it.

"We've been trying to catch it for days. But it's too clever. We put food down in the open to lure it, and more food inside a cage. It took the food from the open but would not go inside the cage. Would you go inside a cage? I wouldn't. We are supposed to be descended from monkeys but monkeys are cleverer than we are.

"The reason you're not supposed to feed monkeys is that it stops them being able to fend for themselves. They aren't born knowing how to catch food. They learn from their elders. If you stop a baby monkey learning, it doesn't know how to survive and can't teach its children.

"Once a monkey learns that it gets food where humans live it hangs around. If it gets food three or four times it waits for some more. Then if somebody comes back from shopping with food in a bag the monkey will try to take it.

"We had one monkey climbing up the balconies to one of the upper flats. Luckily it didn't get inside. A monkey indoors creates havoc, hundreds of pounds worth of damage, a huge insurance claim."

A biker who is also a hasher (a member of a worldwide running group which in Singapore runs through the jungle) told me"
"We see the monkeys if we have a run through Bukit Timah. Th government used to put up little signs asking you not to feed damage. Now the signs are huge. Monkeys can be very aggressive and destructive. They can get on your bike and tear the saddle."

Angela Lansbury
Travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
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