A 37-year-old woman was robbed of her shopping by macaque monkeys at a local market in Lop Buri’s Muang district on Wednesday.
Arikanta Kanjanasinmetha said she wants to file a complaint with the police against the two monkeys that attacked her from behind, causing her to fall over, “but I didn’t know how to file a police complaint when the attackers were monkeys. I told myself that it would be useless anyway,” she said.
She said she was walking back to her vehicle, after finishing food shopping for her dinner, when she was attacked from behind and fell face down.
At first, she did not know who had attacked her, thinking it was some human robbers, until the people who rushed to help her told her that they were, in fact, two large monkeys. Arikanta was taken to a nearby hospital, where she was treated for wounds on her hands, torso and knees.
Hundreds of monkeys in many places in Lop Buri are a nuisance for people, including snatching things from them.
Normally, they reside at temples in the province, but they have started to encroach into human habitats looking for food. Their numbers have risen quickly, because the authorities have no clear or effective plan to control their numbers.
It is reported that owners of the shops in the affected areas have had to close their businesses, as potential customers stopped coming, fearing the monkeys and the loss of their belongings.
Many residents have also moved to new places, because the monkeys get into their properties.
Meanwhile, Pradit Kliangklao, 66, said that the monkeys have been around since he was young, but the numbers at that time were small.
Now, he said, they have started breaking into human dwellings and stealing their belongings. “Incidents where the monkeys snatch things from passers-by happen almost every day,” he said.
A taxi motorcyclist, who did not identify himself, said that the monkeys are smart enough to hide quietly under vehicles and wait for people to pass by. Then they snatch their belongings from behind.
In early February, the authorities rounded up a large number of the monkeys in the province and will relocate them to a zoo by the end of this month.
