FRONT PAGE | Monday, October 26, 2009 | Email | Print | 
Monkeys starve as tourists keep off Thekkady
VR Jayaraj | Idukki
Twenty-five days after Kerala’s worst boat accident, which killed 45 tourists on the Thekkady lake, the boat-landing centre at the tourist spot remains largely deserted. The business of tourism at Thekkady and the adjacent spice town of Kumili has been hit hard by the accident, with the flow of travellers thinning to less than 15 per cent. More than anyone else, however, the monkeys here are the hardest hit.
It is a heartbreaking sight for any nature lover. Nearly 150 monkeys, who used to live on food items offered by visitors till the day the Jalakanyaka capsized in the Thekkady lake, are now seen rushing to anyone crossing the check-post opening to the tourist spot. With not many visitors to offer them peanuts, popcorn or left-over meals anymore, these simians are starving in the jungle that man transformed into a pleasure spot for himself.
“What do you see on those faces? The pain of starvation, expectation, despair, aloofness or disillusionment? All that, I think. All these years, they have lived here in comfort, with their stomachs full and as friends to man. Now they are destitute, left with no food. Living among people has robbed them of the capacity to search for food in the jungle. Maybe they will have to discover it again,” said Anil Joseph, an environmentalist from Thodupuzha, sitting on the half-wall beside the KTDC office in Thekkady.
The monkeys have been dependent only on the food offered to them by tourists. They had learned the art of making the visitors part with whatever eatables the latter were carrying. These primates would play around groups of travellers — especially those enjoying a break with some snacks and a cola, and those who would have their meal at noon at the boat-landing centre — until they were offered food. When it was time for the visitors to leave, the monkeys would rush near the hotels so that they could pick up whatever had been thrown out.
“All that has stopped now,” Anil said, pointing towards a family of four monkeys sitting expectantly near a group of forest officials who had come to the spot for investigations into the tragic accident. “Almost half the resident human population of Thekkady, Kumily and nearby areas is concerned about its own meals following the recession in tourism business. How can they look after the monkeys?” he asked.
Also, the monkeys of Thekkady are the victims of what biologists call “acquired characteristics”. Dependence on cooked or processed food — including roasted peanuts, potato chips, bread, popcorn or chapatis — turned into a habit and, in the process, they forgot their natural art of searching for and collecting food in the jungle.
“Life would be terrible for them inside the jungle since these animals have never waged a war for existence,” said Mohanan, an employee with the Tourism Department. “They might have lost all their natural survival skills required for life in the wild as they have never lived in forests,” he added.
Mohanan pointed out that the Government was unlikely to do anything to end the starvation of these monkeys as, even otherwise, tourist places like Thekkady had regulations that strictly ban offering eatables to wild animals.
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