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POKHARA, Jan 31: Pushpendra Pandey, the ward chairman of Pokhara Metropolitan City-19, issued a notice to the ward's residents on Monday advising them to cut trees around their houses to control monkey menace.
The notice stated, “Pokhara Metropolitan City's Lamachaur Purunchaur area is heavily affected by monkeys. In response, the provincial government has adopted a policy to control monkey menace. The residents are therefore requested, starting from today, to cut down trees at their homes within the next 10 days to support this campaign.”
The notice went viral on social media soon after it was issued by the ward office. The notice drew severe criticism rather than positive remarks.
Ward 16 of Pokhara is adjacent to ward 19, which spent Rs 200,000 last year to purchase a device to scare off the monkeys. According to Ward Chairman Amrit Sharma Timilsina, the device was bought from the National Invention Center and handed over to the farmers. At first, the monkeys got scared and ran away when they heard the sound of the gun. But later, the monkeys got used to the sound and were not intimidated anymore.
“It is not right to initiate a campaign to cut trees in order to control monkey menace. However, the pain inflicted by the monkey is beyond explanation. The monkeys have caused a lot of pain to the villagers,” he added.
Pokhara-16 and Pokhara-19 are connected with each other. Some sections of those wards are completely rural settlements. There are also community forests. Because of the tall trees, it has become easy for the monkeys to thrive and multiply.
According to Timilsina, the villagers have stopped cultivating in their farms due to the fear of monkeys. Instead of farming, the villagers have started to keep the fields fallow.
The situation is so dire that the villagers cannot sustain a living without farming, but that is not possible due to the monkey menace. The villagers are so fed up that they are weighing options to migrate elsewhere.
“Large swathes of cultivable lands are left fallow. There seems to be no solution to the crisis. After being harassed by the monkeys, the ward office bought a device to scare the monkeys away, but now the monkeys have stopped being scared by that device,” said Timsina.
Residents of Pokhara-19 stated that they have always suffered from monkeys. The locals complain that a person has to remain standby from morning till evening to scare away the monkeys
Shishir Paudel, a resident of Pokhara-19, says that the human settlements are troubled by the monkeys from the nearby community forests.
According to him, Bhumipujne Tikhedhunga, Hadeban, Parilopakha, and Gayatrikunja are all community forests where the forest area is dense.
“There is a fear of monkeys attacking people. You can't even go to chase monkeys alone,” he added.
According to Paudel, the children who go to school are also scared of monkeys.
“Children are afraid to walk alone because of the threats from the monkeys. We don’t find people at their homes in these villages. They guard their farms from early in the morning till late in the evening,” he said.
Manahar Kadariya, head of Agriculture Division of Pokhara Metropolitan City, said that the rural areas are very much troubled by monkeys.
“The metropolis bought guns and gave them to the people to chase away the monkeys.” But the guns were of little help to shoot monkeys on tall tree tops, the locals complained.
They also made cages to keep monkeys. However, it was not feasible due to management problems.
Purneshwar Subedi, head of the Division Forest Office, Kaski, said that the federal government should address the issue faced by the people. He said that farmers are being displaced due to monkey menace.