The Kaohsiung City Government’s Agriculture Bureau has proposed training stray dogs to deal with a large group of troublesome macaques as an alternative to the controversial use of sterilization.
Kaohsiung City councilor Lin Fu-pao (林富寶) of the Democratic Progressive Party on Thursday called for the sterilization of macaques on Ciwei Mountain (旗尾山), after a farmer was killed when he came into contact with an electrified net that had been put up to protect fruit orchards from macaques.
Responding to protests from conservationists that sterilization would be detrimental to diversity in the species, the bureau said it would train dogs to drive monkeys away from the crops.
Photo: Chang Chung-i, Taipei Times
Lin said he has called on the central government numerous times to undertake measures to control the number of macaques in the area.
At Thursday’s meeting Lin said that sterilization would be a way to solve the problem “once and for all.”
The Taitung Forest District Office was the first government agency in the nation to use sterilization as a means of controlling macaque numbers, which it began doing last year when the animals started invading orchards in the county and destroying property.
The office said it has sterilized more than 30 macaques to date.
National Sun Yat-sen University doctoral student and macaque researcher Lin Mei-yin (林美吟) said that aside from the detrimental impact sterilization would have on the macaques’ gene pool, it would also not solve the problem farmers face in the short term.
“Legislators should be helping farmers fight for more benefits and safer crop barriers, not running after wild animals with knives whenever problems emerge,” Lin said.
Lin said that offering subsidies for the installation of safer electrical nets would be a more immediately effective and safe measure.
Bureau Director Tsai Fu-ching (蔡復進) said training dogs is a new approach to the problem, with the dogs being trained to scare monkeys away, not bite them.
Dog training is scheduled to begin next year and farmers who are interested can apply to the bureau to join the program, Tsai said.
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