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Attack of the Evil Monkeys From Hell
grrlscientist writes "A new form of communication between wild vervet monkeys and humans is causing humans distress — and a collapse of their food supply. Approximately 300 vervet monkeys in Kenya are sexually harassing the women of a village so they can steal their crops. None of the attempts to discourage the monkeys has so far worked."
Have they tried flinging feces at the monkeys yet?
Shoot the damn monkeys already
they're phi sigma kappa pledges
That way, they'll only watch porn all night and never actually lay a hand on anything female.
They've been watching BET.
eat the monkeys. problem solved.
in all srriousness what could be done is trying taste aversion [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taste_aversion] basically this was used on wild animals to prevent the killing of sheep. what they did was add a lithium salt to a set of dead sheep, the animals would eat the meat, lithium and all and it caused nausea and reduced their activity. these affects were associated with the sheep meat and after a while the animals stopped attacking sheep as a food source. now all of these behaviors with these particular primates stem from their attempt to acquire food so putting a stop to that motivation stops the problem entirely. the last reason this could be an option is that the predators survive the encounter, taste aversion shouldn't cause long term harm like a few other options [hunting for one]
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
The monkeys fear men and harass women. Therefore, have the men work the fields, and send the women out to do whatever the men are doing now.
As soon as your done having your laughs, folks, remember that it's a hell of a lot funnier when it isn't your family that's at risk of hunger.
I'm quite able to understand the why there. "why" in this case, can be any number of reasons, danger of extinction, protected habitat area, significant to plant growth of a protected wildlife area (fecal seeding, or the like). That's a no brainer. However, they're also a danger to farming operations in Africa, which for a good chunk of the last quarter century at LEAST has been plagued by drought, mismanaged farms and other issues which confound the ability of the populace to adequately feed itself. Therefore, the only real reason is a WWF/UN imperative created by 1st world enviromentalist interests to protect the animals.
However, regardless of how many monkeys of that particular species there might be, we're doing overreaching amounts of harm by allowing them to become attached to a method of food gathering that relies on raiding human foodstocks. A raiding party clearly needs to be made example of (harmed preferrably, but face it, it's Africa, they're getting killed.) So that the monkies return to a sustainable natural gathering method that would allow them to function smoothly and avoid attracting human ire in the long run. Failing the luxury of such a solution, the other viable alternative is moving the clan of monkeys entirely.
Anyways, in response to your post, that why should be something like "why are they being blindly protected" not "why are they protected". Protection schemes that interfere with the ability of an organism to cope with certain challenges damage that organism when that challenge arises.
Is there anything they do that ISN'T entertaining?
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
More to the point, if pandas start to steal food from humans (yes, I know they wouldn't, it is just an example), we wouldn't wipe them out as a 'pest'. You have to take into account the fact that pandas are critically endangered. That said, I believe vervet monkeys are far less endangered than pandas, so it might make sense to allow some reasonable action against them.
What Would The A-Team Do?
First, to travel a long distance with B.A. by plane, he'd have to be tricked into taking a sedative, then loaded onto the plane.
Hannibal and Face would be too busy sexually harrasing the women themselves to get serious for a while. Murdoc would 'get to know the enemy' by joining the monkeys, while B.A. would be pissed about getting tricked again.
Inspired by the earlier drugging of B.A., Hannibal would come up with the plan to have Murdoc sleeping drug the monkeys while B.A. and Face Montage-Weld a specialized monkey-scooper truck, to load them on the plane. As they leave they drop the monkeys into the compound of the military dictator.
(maybe I shouldn't port at 2 am)
"they would need to think their way around a .38 bullet"
For small, fast moving critters like monkeys I would use bird shot. It would be hard to hit them with a bullet.
right, didn't think so.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
See ethology of vervets.
its dead simple why we have to come up with a more mutually beneficial solution.
check out the evolution process.
when you dig around, you will see that its not being tougher or stronger or more aggressive that propels some species into higher evolutionary stages, but cooperation, mutually beneficial acts WITHIN the social structure of the species and with the other species. lets now examine examples :
stellar example - humans. the evolution of humans have gone parallel to their capacity of being cooperative within the specie or even the social unit, and therefore besting out dangers and dire situations. caring for the weak, protecting the infant, nurturing the needy were the strengths that allowed the early primate societies to be able to go into playing with this and that and come up with tools that were eventually to be used in survival.
lets get it further - humans have established mutually beneficial relations with many other species and caused both parties to thrive - wheat might be one of the most abundant plant specie on the face of the earth, and this is solely due to human dependence on them. same goes for cattle. they are protected, and they give out something in return. there are kinks to work out as to the degree of mutually beneficialness because we slaughter the cattle in parts of the relationship, but as with recent human history this will be evolving into a more mutually benefical relationship too.
taking human near history - in the last 2000 years, wars and aggressive acts have decreased in FREQUENCY and distribution to geography - compared to what it was before and after a brief stellar period during rome, you do not have any chance of a local raider living 100 km to you to come raid you, rape your wife and take your child as slave. therefore in the last 2000 years we have seen an increasingly consistent level of civilizational development. again, excluding rome, which is a real anomaly in regard to history - in that the modern concepts we still use are taken from rome, from the concept of apartment to modern law, and even medicine in parts.
you can increase examples just as you wish - there are seemingly weak fish and lobster species in the ocean that live together, one is acting as sentry and other is digging the hole both will live in. they never go further from each other than 10 cm. yet, in an ocean of many dangers, these two species best out many other species and thrive despite when compared to other species as a single unit, they should be long extinct. or the jellyfish - bacteria mutualism in southeastern asia.
therefore, it is conclusive that the acts which mutually benefit a specie and the other continually elevates the chances of both species. from this comes the conclusion that "we are further advanced since we need to find a less aggressive, more beneficial way". acting otherwise have brought many problems to the modern world, that are making the worldwide news today.
Read radical news here
But they're only black African savages, so it's "funny".
At first I thought this was a scam or a joke. But then I noticed the source at the bottom of the article. And it is one of the most credible news sources there is: BBC.
It would have been better if the article linked to that, rather than to some, at least to me, rather obscure blogger.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6959209.stm
"The monkeys grab their breasts, and gesture at us while pointing at their private parts...."
So by my count that's two (2) hands to grab breasts, one (1) hand to gesture and one (1) hand to point at the privates. Total four (4) hands per monkey. Do these magical monkeys fly too?
Rich people are eccentric. Poor people are strange. Me, I'd be happy with odd.
Gecko45? Is that you? God, I love the anti-guerilla counter-terrorist guys on the net. They're always fun.
Yeah, well, I was an elite CIA Force Recon UDT Sniper Seal Yellow Beret (much cooler than those Green Beret pansies) with OSS doing black ops in the Argonne Forest just north of the Chosin Reservoir back in '84. I can't comment on which unit I was with or anything I actually did because it's so top secret the government will deny I was ever in the military, and you might get on the NSA's super-secret list if you even reply to this comment.
-l
If these monkeys were "in the closet," though, would they be going after WOMEN?
It's the ones that have come out of the closet that wouldn't.