Japan Today: 24 Japanese Macaques to be given lethal injection

[Guest guest]

animal people,

 

Jeff Bryant (mikocat3) thought you would be interested in this article:

24 Japanese Macaques to be given lethal injection

 

Monday, January 17, 2005 at 13:31 JST

AOMORI - A local government in Aomori Prefecture on Monday started

catching 24 of Japanese Macaques, a terrestrial monkey native to

Japan and a protected species, on concerns they may harm people.

 

The Wakinosawa village government said it will administer lethal

injections on the monkeys in the Shimokita Peninsula under the

prefecture's protection and management law, which allows protected

species to be captured and killed should they cause serious harm to

humans. (Kyodo News)

 

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[Guest guest]

I wonder if someone can provide the Japanase media info about the

successful birth control programme among wild monkeys in Hong Kong? It is

the only humane and ultimately truly effective way to manage the population.

 

For those interested in humane methods to reduce monkey populations, here

> is some info about the contraceptive treatment of wild monkeys in Hong

> Kong, kindly provided by Mr C.L. Wong, Agriculture, Fisheries and

> Conservation Department, Hong Kong Government. The results seem

> encouraging. Although the catching part is hard, birth control appears to

> be an effective method to control monkey populations and to reduce

> human-wildlife conflict, especially in large Asian cities.

>

> --------------------------------

>

> From Mr C.L. Wong, Hong Kong Government:

>

> We introduced the 1st phase of the contraception programme to wild monkeys

> in early 2002 as a field trial where 20 female monkeys were captured and

> treated with SpayVac. The main purposes are to check the effectiveness

> of the contraceptive vaccine and to monitor the behaviour and sociobiology

> of the treated macaques. A monitoring programme was started immediately

> after the contraceptive treatment on macaques in the field. In addition to

> the 20 females treated with contraceptive vaccine, some male macaques were

> also captured and treated with chemical vasectomy (blocking of the vas

> deferens by chemical).

>

> Without the agreement of the contraceptive vaccine supplier, I am not able

> to provide you a detail account on the results of the programme as we have

> signed a contract with the supplier, the ImmunoVaccine Technologies Inc.

> Canada. However I could provide you a very brief summary of our results

> after the 1st year monitoring:

>

> a. Ten treated female monkeys and four treated male monkeys were seen

again in field visits.

> b. None of the treated female monkeys were seen pregnant in the birth

season.

> c. Normal sexual characteristics (e.g. swelling and reddening of the

> genitalia in mating season) of the treated monkeys were observed.

> d. Mating activities for both treated male and female monkeys were

observed to be normal as compared to other monkeys.

> e. No obvious change of social status of the treated male monkeys in its

> group was detected.

> f. Coherency of treated monkeys to other monkeys in its group was still

> high and group splitting/dropouts of treated monkeys was not observed.

 

With the encouraging results from the first phase, we decided to extend

the field trial to the 2nd phase in late 2003. The aim of the extended field

> trial of contraceptive treatment on wild monkeys is to treat about 30 -

55% fertile female monkeys in the target groups so that effective data in

> population dynamics of the monkey groups can be obtained for developing of

> a long-term plan on population control of wild monkeys. We planned to

focus this field trial to 3 groups of wild monkeys of about 330 individuals.

>

> The problem we have now is to catch the monkeys. They are so clever that

> they are likely to avoid traps after some of their companions got trapped.

> That is why we are only about half-way done for the time being. The

> situation in Hong Kong also cannot allow us to use some effective traps as

> built-up/ residential areas surround the so call " Monkey Hill " .

>