Singapore Safari: Who's the monkey's uncle?

  monkey feeders 

In the evenings, the road leading to Upper Pierce Reservoir Park is rife with troupes of long-tailed macaques who have become accustomed to handouts from drivers. Maybe it's a kind of 'trickle-down' effect, whereby eternally grateful citizens pass on a token of their fiscal magnanimousity to lesser beings after receiving a bounty of beaming proportions.

The folks in the minivan are innocent (I think), but the ah pek in the red car was dishing out roasted pumpkin seeds to the waiting simians, and open packs were already strewn on the wayside grass by the time I reached them. When I approached the vehicle with a monkey wrench, an anxious young lady behind the uncle uttered to the driver, "Kia! Kia!" and they hurried off leaving a newly-opened pack of seeds on the ground.

A short while later, another car stopped right where I was and a little girl of about ten rushed out with a plastic container filled with cut apples. In halting Mandarin, I told her dad that feeding the monkeys wasn't permited and does more harm than good to both the animals and other park visitors. He hastily drove off after his daughter took back the container (although she forgot to retrieve its plastic cover).

  monkey road block

Another car I encountered had a family with a large bag of bananas. Other food deemed to be suitable for wild primates, as evidenced by their packaging along the road all the way to Upper Thomson Road, include sliced sandwich loaves, roasted peanuts, dried fruit, Twisties and other processed snacks.

Leaving aside the legality of the act, it boggles the mind how members of a much more intelligent race could fail to comprehend how their well-meaning thoughtlessness results in unhappy endings for both men and monkey. Lured by the promise of easy meals, the troupes forsake their natural diet of forest fruit and jungle pickings and now regard vehicles as motorised soup kitchens. A fair number end up as food themselves for carrion eaters when they overestimate the reflexes of drivers.

  monkey eat 

Others develop an aggressive streak, approaching humans without fear and some are even known to snatch food or other small items from picnickers or hikers on the trails. As their numbers grow beyond their natural strength, some take to invading homes on the fringes of the forest. These pilferers are nabbed and sent to the land of nod. As with community cats in public estates (where certain residents feed felines without bothering to clean up or sterilise them, leading to complaints that result in the culling of the animals), creatures shaped by men are the victims of a species that seems unable or unwilling to engage his wisdom and see that a sad chain of consequences lie before the seemingly simple and sweet deed of being 'kind' to animals.

Comments

[Slow]

"members of a much more intelligent race"

You sure about that statement or is that only a biased assumption?

[Vegancatsg]

Perhaps these "much more intelligent race" should be packed to a zoo and be fed what they brought to feed the monkeys.
It all stems of almost inherent Singaporean trait that "as long as lim-par suka, I don't care!"

[Limpar]

I happened to be the honoured limpar that got my vehicle taken on your photos. YOU Bastard! You must be those cho boh lan suckers there! Don't let me see you again! I know how you look since your photos are all over the internet.