For more than 30 years, Lop Buri’s monkeys have enjoyed annual banquets at the city’s shrine of San Phra Kan and the world-famous Phra Prang Samyot temple ruins.
The warm welcome for monkeys runs all year round and draws hordes of visitors from across Thailand and the world. However, it may not last much longer.
The huge popularity of the Monkey Banquet Festival has failed to appease locals, who are fed up with macaques looting their businesses, destroying their property, and scaring customers away.
Complaints from human residents have grown so loud that this year authorities launched a round-up to remove at least 1,000 furry inhabitants of a place once proudly dubbed the City of Monkeys.
Where did they come from?
Nobody knows for sure why there are so many monkeys making a nuisance of themselves in Lop Buri.
It is widely believed that wild macaques started coming to San Phra Kan for the food and beverages left at the shrine as offerings.
As the city encroached on their forest habitat, perhaps the monkeys found it easier to grab food from the shrine.
Over time, monkeys began straying further into the town in search of food.
Inevitably, they found rich pickings in shops and their new foraging habits began doing damage to people’s property.
The furry critters have now become city residents, living – not always peacefully – alongside the human population.
Having long since quit their natural habitat, they are no longer familiar with foraging for food in the wild.
“Monkeys destroyed our air conditioners, so we could no longer sleep at our shophouse. We tend the shop during the day and sleep at another place at night,” said one local of the trouble caused by macaques.
Worse still, the monkeys have scared off customers at her shop, reducing her income.
Cracking down
In May, multiple authorities launched a crackdown to remove monkeys from Lop Buri’s streets.
As of June 7, more than 800 monkeys had been captured in a sterilization program designed to prevent the population from growing further.
“They will then be relocated to a wildlife sanctuary,” said Padej Laithong, director of the Wildlife Conservation Office in the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation (DNP).
Monkey problem
The DNP has logged complaints about monkeys in 292 areas covering 52 provinces of the country. The complaints involve a total of about 70,000 monkeys.
Of these furry troublemakers, around 8,600 live in Lop Buri.
Long history
DNP director-general Athapol Charoenshunsa said that despite the major crackdown, authorities have no intention of removing all the monkeys from Lop Buri.
“Monkeys must have lived in Lop Buri for a long, long time already,” he said, citing the local discovery of a thousand-year-old sculpture depicting a man with a monkey on a leash.
Given the province’s historic ties with the species, the government plans to remove around 2,000 monkeys and leave the rest in peace for now.
“We hope the monkeys will become controllable when their population is far smaller,” he said.
The remaining monkeys will still be allowed to roam around San Phra Kan and Phra Prang Samyot but deterred from venturing further into town.
“We want to foster a mutual and peaceful coexistence between [humans and macaques] because monkeys have become a symbol of Lop Buri,” he said.
Monkey banquet festival
The authorities have partnered with local businesses to throw a party for monkeys around San Phra Kan and Phra Prang Samyot in late November every year since 1989.
The annual feasts attract Thai and foreign tourists as well as national and even international media coverage.
Last year’s Monkey Banquet Festival saw thousands of macaques turn up to gorge on over 2 tons of fruit and vegetables.
By Thai PBS World’s General Desk
