Attack of the Evil Monkeys From Hell

grrlscientist writes "A new form of communication between wild vervet monkeys and humans is causing humans distress — and a collapse of their food supply. Approximately 300 vervet monkeys in Kenya are sexually harassing the women of a village so they can steal their crops. None of the attempts to discourage the monkeys has so far worked."

Tit-for-Tat

Have they tried flinging feces at the monkeys yet?

Re:Tit-for-Tat

No, just spanking.

Re:Tit-for-Tat

I don't know about that. As I've been through Kenya and most of the surrounding area a few times it seem to me that the best solution would be the opposite of what most Slashdotters are proposing here.

I say the Kenyan government should give the monkeys full human rights. Set aside an area of the country designated a monkey habitat and enshrine in law the monkeys' collective ownership of that land.

Then announce to the Western world that a routine governmental survey has found something of great value on the monkey-land. Gold, oil, rhodium, manganese, pretty flowers. Anything that can be collected and sold will do. The rest will take care of itself.

Before long armored divisions will start showing up to keep the peace. Machine gun bunkers will be built. Far overhead, out of sight of the monkeys, billion dollar airplanes will peer down throught their bombsights, trying to locate the laser the ground team is shining on a mudpile monkey hut so the bomber crew can precisely deliver a million dollar payload of explosives to eradicate the hut and all its occupants from the face of the earth.

An opposing monkey faction would be developed by dangling the carrot of power in front of an influential but well liked monkey leader of a monkey splinter group. To this faction the West could provide weapons, in return for assurances that when power was consolidated the weapon providers could expect the favor to be repaid. We just want to see an end to the monkey terror, you see.

But, with the other hand, the West could make sure that power never was consolidated. This way the monkeys would set themselves to the task of continually collecting whatever natural resource it was the West wanted, so they could afford a continual supply of weapons to fight a war that would never end.

If that isn't a time and again proven effective method of monkey subordination I don't know what is.

Not that hard of a problem to solve

Shoot the damn monkeys already

Re:Not that hard of a problem to solve

Just make sure to lock your guns up, since they're breaking into homes. Monkey see, monkey do.

Re:Not that hard of a problem to solve

It's a criminal offense to harm them.

Re:Not that hard of a problem to solve

It's a criminal offense to harm them. If it is a crime to try to survive, the monkeys have already won, and the villagers will starve to death.

Seriously though. Last time I checked, fighting for survival never stopped being a right of every living thing on the planet. Even a court will have to recognize this. The villagers have tried to get rid of the monkeys without harming them, and it doesn't work- it has driven them to famine relief. Should they kill monkeys from now on, I don't think a lawyer would have any trouble defending the case. Even if someone ends up doing jail time, it's better to be tried by 12 than to be carried by 6.

Furthermore, these monkeys are probably intelligent enough to stay away once they understand that they can be killed. Shooting blanks from that point on should be enough from that point on (it would probably even work for creatures as intelligent as humans).

Re:Not that hard of a problem to solve

http://www.enviro.co.za/ethology/ [enviro.co.za] People encroach on the monkey's habitat and encounter the cute vervets.
The vervet monkeys have a natural fear of man.
People feed the monkeys.
The vervets get brave.
The vervets become a nuisance
The people start shooting and killing monkeys
The vervet population drops drastically, threatening plants that depend on them for seed dispersal, and animals that depend on the plants.
The vervet monkeys are protected by the government
The monkeys get brave and become a nuisance

Re:

It's a criminal offense to harm them.

Dogs don't understand the law.

Bring in a predator.

 

Re:

I think Vick has a few pit bulls to spare.

Pit bull monkey fights! That would be a spectacle.

Re:

Dogs don't understand the law. Bring in a predator.

I don't think it gets cold enough there to freeze the gorillas come wintertime.

Re:Not that hard of a problem to solve

It's a criminal offense to harm them.

When it's a crime to hunt monkeys, then only criminals will have fried monkey for dinner.

Eat the evidence.

Re:

They can sanction the whole village and given current conditions in other places in Africa, one would suppose those monkeys have friends in high places in that country and I suppose a lot can happen in retaliation.

After all, how did they learn to make rude

Re:Not that hard of a problem to solve

Put two and two together and what do you get?

The weirdest fucking /. post ever.

Those aren't monkeys...

they're phi sigma kappa pledges

Subscribe the monkeys to Slashdot

That way, they'll only watch porn all night and never actually lay a hand on anything female.

Re:Subscribe the monkeys to Slashdot

I take offense to that just because I watch porn all night and never actually laid a hand on anything female doesn't mean I read slashdot... Oh wait

It all began when the monkeys got cable tv...

They've been watching BET.

Re:

Modded Flamebait?!

That wasn't just a joke, it was culturally sensitive humor, pointing out the misogynistic tendencies of a popular television channel.

Perhaps I was too subtle for you: BET teaches that women are objects to be exploited for sex or random ab

when arnt they going hungry?

eat the monkeys. problem solved.

Re:

"The result was AIDS."

You mean HIV, AIDS is a progression of the symptoms. And no, HIV is not passed ingestion. shows how much you know.

taste aversion

in all srriousness what could be done is trying taste aversion [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taste_aversion] basically this was used on wild animals to prevent the killing of sheep. what they did was add a lithium salt to a set of dead sheep, the animals would eat the meat, lithium and all and it caused nausea and reduced their activity. these affects were associated with the sheep meat and after a while the animals stopped attacking sheep as a food source. now all of these behaviors with these particular primates stem from their attempt to acquire food so putting a stop to that motivation stops the problem entirely. the last reason this could be an option is that the predators survive the encounter, taste aversion shouldn't cause long term harm like a few other options [hunting for one]

Re:taste aversion

I hate killing as much as the next guy, but if 300 humans were throwing rocks at my wife and stealing my food to the point where I might not be able to feed my children that night, after a while I'd start shooting the humans. I sure as hell wouldn't put up with it from a monkey.

Re:taste aversion

"that's right kill anything that stands in your way."

We aren't talking about the monkeys standing in the way of me having a 2nd car, or having a new play station. We are talking about them preventing some of the poorest people in the world getting enough food just to survive. So yes, fuck the stupid monkeys.

"can we not try something just as effective that doesn't involve killing them first"

What are you, dense? they have already tried nasty tasting baits, dressing up to scare them and hitting them with sticks. I'd say that's a fucking good effort for people facing starvation because of the monkeys.

Re:

If the article is rigth, then the monkeys are threathening the food-supply of the villagers. This ain't a "minor" problem. Taking care of the environment is important, but that doesn't mean self-defence ain't allowed.

Norway, for example, has in general ver

reverse the gender roles

The monkeys fear men and harass women. Therefore, have the men work the fields, and send the women out to do whatever the men are doing now.

Re:reverse the gender roles

But the mens' favorite shows are on during peak farming hours.

Wet blanket time.

As soon as your done having your laughs, folks, remember that it's a hell of a lot funnier when it isn't your family that's at risk of hunger.

the eco friendly solution

300 female Vervet Monkeys in black teddies..

MONKEYS!

TONIGHT WE DINE IN KENYA!

Ah, monkies...

    Is there anything they do that ISN'T entertaining?

WWTHAD?

What Would The A-Team Do?

First, to travel a long distance with B.A. by plane, he'd have to be tricked into taking a sedative, then loaded onto the plane.

Hannibal and Face would be too busy sexually harrasing the women themselves to get serious for a while. Murdoc would 'get to know the enemy' by joining the monkeys, while B.A. would be pissed about getting tricked again.

Inspired by the earlier drugging of B.A., Hannibal would come up with the plan to have Murdoc sleeping drug the monkeys while B.A. and Face Montage-Weld a specialized monkey-scooper truck, to load them on the plane. As they leave they drop the monkeys into the compound of the military dictator.

(maybe I shouldn't port at 2 am)

linky

See ethology of vervets [enviro.co.za].

"It's funny. Laugh". Assholes

"The predominantly farming community is now having to receive famine relief food. The residents report that the monkeys have killed livestock and guard dogs, which has also left the villagers living in fear, especially for the safety of their babies and children."

But they're only black African savages, so it's "funny".

Source, source, where are thou...

At first I thought this was a scam or a joke. But then I noticed the source at the bottom of the article. And it is one of the most credible news sources there is: BBC.

It would have been better if the article linked to that, rather than to some, at least to me, rather obscure blogger.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6959209.stm [bbc.co.uk]

More than the average number of arms?

"The monkeys grab their breasts, and gesture at us while pointing at their private parts...."
So by my count that's two (2) hands to grab breasts, one (1) hand to gesture and one (1) hand to point at the privates. Total four (4) hands per monkey. Do these magical monkeys fly too?

Re:

Take a stick and sharpen it. Then plunge it into the monkey. No ammo needed.

Actually, you probably won't even need to kill them. Maybe a cattle prod or something and shock them a few times. You could take a stick and put a bunch of dull needles on them and

Re:nay

Gecko45? Is that you? God, I love the anti-guerilla counter-terrorist guys on the net. They're always fun.

Yeah, well, I was an elite CIA Force Recon UDT Sniper Seal Yellow Beret (much cooler than those Green Beret pansies) with OSS doing black ops in the Argonne Forest just north of the Chosin Reservoir back in '84. I can't comment on which unit I was with or anything I actually did because it's so top secret the government will deny I was ever in the military, and you might get on the NSA's super-secret list if you even reply to this comment.

  -l

Re:

"Despite their new problems with the monkeys, it is a criminal offence[sic] to harm or kill any of them, so the besieged villagers must figure out a way to outwit the monkeys instead."

Given the artificial constraint that the women can't just carry a small

Re:New behavior? Mimicing humans is well observed.

Would you leave your home because monkeys were attacking your wife?

right, didn't think so.

Re:New behavior? Mimicing humans is well observed.

We learned from numerous instances of interaction with monkeys in the past that they easily mimic and correctly apply our methods and tools after sufficient observation. Unless there is proof of the contrary, I'm going to step forward and say that they're just mimicking behavior that they have previously observed humans using.

Mimicking human behavior is only one explanation, and not even the most likely one. Another plausible option is that one or two 'perverted' monkeys acted like, well, perverts, and this happened to occur around human women. This behavior caused distress to the women in the area. The women left, and the monkeys took what they wanted. Since this strategy succeeded, it spread to other monkeys by cultural transmission.

you can sure bet If it was humans undertaking this same behavior the men would have been right up in that situation laying down the law

Sure, but so what? Monkeys aren't humans. If a tiger kills his handler at the zoo we don't prosecute it for murder (or even manslaughter). If a dog does his business on the sidewalk we don't prosecute it for an indecent act.

More to the point, if pandas start to steal food from humans (yes, I know they wouldn't, it is just an example), we wouldn't wipe them out as a 'pest'. You have to take into account the fact that pandas are critically endangered. That said, I believe vervet monkeys are far less endangered than pandas, so it might make sense to allow some reasonable action against them.

Re:

I'm quite able to understand the why there. "why" in this case, can be any number of reasons, danger of extinction, protected habitat area, significant to plant growth of a protected wildlife area (fecal seeding, or the like). That's a no brainer. However,

Re:

wtf? "megacorporations" build factories in poor nations that provide jobs. sure they suck ass, but it's either work in a sweat shop for 10c a day, or work the fields till your back breaks or prosititue your body till you die from AIDS. i know which i'd pic

Re:I think there's a simple solution.

"they would need to think their way around a .38 bullet"

For small, fast moving critters like monkeys I would use bird shot. It would be hard to hit them with a bullet.

Re:

If you want to get technical bird shot is a lousy way to go. You're more likely to badly injure them than kill them unless you're fairly close. Something like #4 Buckshot is better. They hold 28 pellets that are each nearly the size of a .22 round. There a

Re:

dimwit, did you go to africa and worked in ANY relief effort ? ill leave that out, because i know its impossible. did you just ever know any person that volunteered to go right into middle of africa and tried to feed the hungry ? note, im not even asking i

Re:Spurious Logic. . .

its dead simple why we have to come up with a more mutually beneficial solution.

check out the evolution process.

when you dig around, you will see that its not being tougher or stronger or more aggressive that propels some species into higher evolutionary stages, but cooperation, mutually beneficial acts WITHIN the social structure of the species and with the other species. lets now examine examples :

stellar example - humans. the evolution of humans have gone parallel to their capacity of being cooperative within the specie or even the social unit, and therefore besting out dangers and dire situations. caring for the weak, protecting the infant, nurturing the needy were the strengths that allowed the early primate societies to be able to go into playing with this and that and come up with tools that were eventually to be used in survival.

lets get it further - humans have established mutually beneficial relations with many other species and caused both parties to thrive - wheat might be one of the most abundant plant specie on the face of the earth, and this is solely due to human dependence on them. same goes for cattle. they are protected, and they give out something in return. there are kinks to work out as to the degree of mutually beneficialness because we slaughter the cattle in parts of the relationship, but as with recent human history this will be evolving into a more mutually benefical relationship too.

taking human near history - in the last 2000 years, wars and aggressive acts have decreased in FREQUENCY and distribution to geography - compared to what it was before and after a brief stellar period during rome, you do not have any chance of a local raider living 100 km to you to come raid you, rape your wife and take your child as slave. therefore in the last 2000 years we have seen an increasingly consistent level of civilizational development. again, excluding rome, which is a real anomaly in regard to history - in that the modern concepts we still use are taken from rome, from the concept of apartment to modern law, and even medicine in parts.

you can increase examples just as you wish - there are seemingly weak fish and lobster species in the ocean that live together, one is acting as sentry and other is digging the hole both will live in. they never go further from each other than 10 cm. yet, in an ocean of many dangers, these two species best out many other species and thrive despite when compared to other species as a single unit, they should be long extinct. or the jellyfish - bacteria mutualism in southeastern asia.

therefore, it is conclusive that the acts which mutually benefit a specie and the other continually elevates the chances of both species. from this comes the conclusion that "we are further advanced since we need to find a less aggressive, more beneficial way". acting otherwise have brought many problems to the modern world, that are making the worldwide news today.

Re:

nay, maybe i miscommunicated. or did not explain all parts of my point.

apex of evolution need not and should not be being on top of food chain. apex of evolution would be to be the governing body of a living, breathing, entirely integrated ecosphere of

Re:Family Guy warned us

If these monkeys were "in the closet," though, would they be going after WOMEN?

Re:Family Guy warned us

If these monkeys were "in the closet," though, would they be going after WOMEN?

That's a pretty silly question - of course they would.

It's the ones that have come out of the closet that wouldn't. :)