From an indulgent view of the truant monkey, we are now wary and view the monkey in the city with alarm, even fear. Yet, the idea of culling monkeys to control their population seems to be a failed one in India.There is no surprise that in the month since the Himachal government allowed the culling — Uttarakhand has just declared monkeys as 'vermin', essentially calling for their controlled extermination — little has moved on the ground. Culling has seldom worked in India since it is not perceived as a management approach to population control.On June 9, two ministers had got into a spat regarding the culling of nilgai in Bihar . Environment minister Prakash Javadekar defended the move and women and child development minister Maneka Gandhi cried foul over the “lust for killing animals”.When it comes to monkeys, emotions run higher, especially in the country’s north. Even when five states in 2016 were given the go-ahead for culling, the states were hampered in their effort because people were unwilling to carry out the task. In December 2018, state data showed that in the 30 months since the orders had been given, five monkeys had been culled in 10 Himachal districts.The fresh decision will in all probability have few takers. For starters, Indians have a consensus on co-existing with animals, says primatologist Anindya Sinha. “Co-existence with animals is a baseline in our society. Socio-economic conditions also decide the level of tolerance towards non-humans. At Delhi’s Hanuman Mandir, beggars share their alms with monkeys, and try telling a pilgrim not to feed monkeys,” the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) professor added.That said, for the average person, monkeys have become a bother, a source of destruction. India’s Rhesus macaque — behind all activities that earned all monkey species a poor reputation — has fascinated primatologists with its superb adaptability to urban habitats and foods.“Loss of habitat is there but the biggest problem is that people ensure monkeys have easy access to food. We have habituated them to eating out of our hands,” says Sindhu Radhakrishna, primatologist at NIAS.This familiarity with humans eats up the distance between the two species, making monkeys less inhibited. “The loss of separate spaces for humans and monkeys, loss of that distance, has meant monkeys are familiar with risks involved in accessing food, and lose the shyness wild animals reserve for humans,” says Radhakrishna.Sinha says the Rhesus displayed extremely innovative behaviours. It learnt to barter, returning snatched spectacles and bags for food; it learnt to retaliate fiercely to aggressive human behaviour; it learnt to live as family in slums. And it learnt to steal — displaying super raiding skills, zipping into houses and making off with food.When the stray monkey was still a curiosity, people marvelled at how quickly the four-legged swingers learned to open fridges, turn on taps, deftly open packets of chips and chocolates.The other common species, the Hanuman langur is a shy creature even in the city, keeping its distance from humans. Similarly, the Bonnet monkey, mostly prevalent in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, is a reticent creature.The Rhesus is a pugnacious creature, says Radhakrishna. Once it overcomes the initial inhibition, it becomes much more aggressive. “But they’re just following our cues,” she says.Macaques undergo change in behaviour once they learn “people are a good source of food”, says Sinha. For all animals, food and water is aplenty in the city, and people feed monkeys. Animal officers have gone hoarse telling people not to. When not being fed left-over roti-sabzi and pizza scraps, it is prasad outside temples, or when invading homes, anything from eggs to milk, chips and cheese, chhole bhature and peanuts; the next meal is often just a snatch of a packet of fruits or peanuts away. At worst, tipping a garbage bin is all it takes.The access to rich, processed human food has meant bodily changes, resulting in longer reproductive life spans. “Inter-birth (the time between two birth cycles) has reduced and so the number of offspring in a short term has shot up,” says Radhakrishna.Sterilisation, contraception, relocation and culling, nothing has succeeded in keeping monkey numbers down. On Himachal’s decision to cull, Qamar Qureshi of Wildlife Institute of India (Dehradun) says culling is not the answer to population management.“Culling monkeys, nilgai and wild pig was allowed by several states in the past, too, but without any result as there is no organised process to implement any culling programme. There are ethical reasons also why culling will not be appropriate,” he says.Uttarakhand forest department is planning a 100-hectare sanctuary near Haldwani for simians. The solution, Qureshi says, lies in a multi-pronged approach of temporary translocation, surgical intervention and immuno-contraception. “More problematic areas need to be dealt with by catching monkeys from the site and keeping them for life after sterilisation in rescue or rehabilitation centres.” Which all demands funds.For contraception, WII has selected a sample population of female monkeys in Uttarakhand along with Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh and is keeping them on oral contraceptives for a period of two to three years. “The base survey of behaviour of this monkey population is on. We sterilise them and observe behavioural changes,” says Qureshi.The lasting solution is stopping their food source. “Ours is among the few states which penalises people for feeding monkeys. We’re trying a state-of-the-art ‘monkey-keeping zone’ wherein people can come and feed the monkeys,” says forester-in-chief Jai Raj in Uttarakhand.Feeding monkeys invites penalties in Hong Kong , which since 2007 has managed to curb the macaque populations. Flouting the feeding restriction invites fines of about HK$10,000 (Rs 88,000) upon conviction. Primatologists reiterate the only real solution to curb population and keep them away is to stop feeding the monkeys. As Sinha says, “If they learn you or your house is not a source of food, they will not come there.”