The Lop Buri’s Muang district municipality plans to ask for 26 million baht from the government to improve the province’s monkey zoo, which is being used to house captured aggressive alpha macaques, according to Mayor Chamroen Salacheep.

He said that he has no idea when or if his request will be approved and the municipality has set aside some of its own money, amounting to a little over one million baht, to improve the shelter in Pho Khao Ton sub-district, which was partially built several years ago and remains incomplete due to the shortage of funding.

Now that the responsibility for supervision of the incomplete facility has been transferred from the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation to the municipality, he said that maintenance is required to improve the facility, such as the building of separate cages to house monkeys captured in different locations, to prevent them fighting with each other.

The shelter can currently only accommodate 800 monkeys, less than half of the estimated 2,000 residing in the old town area, said the mayor.

The second phase of the relocation plan was launched on Monday, focusing on the monkeys taking refuge at the abandoned Lop Buri Asia Hotel, Manohra market and the Chayo Wanich store.

The mayor said that a memorandum of understanding was signed in February, between the Nationals Park Department and the municipality, to fast-track the relocation plan with equipment and manpower support from the department.

Chamroen said that there are, however, mixed opinions about the plan to limit feeding of the monkeys, with one large group of residents believing that unrestricted feeding will spoil the monkeys and lead an increase in population, while another group contends that restricted feeding will leave them hungry and more aggressive.

He said that a workable alternative is to capture the aggressive members of the troop and relocate them.