August 2, 2006

You've heard of snakes on a plane...

There's also monkeys on a train. And only one man can save... I mean, one langur....
Posted by Ann Althouse at 8:06 AM
Tags: ,

2 comments:

Tibore said...

Look, I'm one of the first people to find humor and crack jokes about stories like this ("I want these m*********** monkeys off this m*********** train!"). But even then, I have to admit with all seriousness that cities in areas with wild simian populations have a very real problem with agressive monkeys harrasing and even biting people.

BBC story link

TheHindu.com link

Bangladeshinfo.com story about feral monkey infestation in Hong Kong

Funny but true warning sign

(and so forth... just Google...)

Look, I don't want to overstate the problem. Aside from that one incident in the BBC story, people don't usually die from bad experiences with wild monkeys (and in the BBC story, any decent-sized animal could've done the act that killed the man). But still, getting bitten and/or scratched and risking infection is no joke. Sustaining any other kind of injury because the monkey thought you might have some food on you isn't too funny either. Our tendency to anthropomorphize animals leads us to an false sense of security with monkeys - we're conditioned with Curious George, cute lil' fez wearing Capucins, etc., but feral animals, no matter how cute, can still inflict painful injuries.

8/2/06, 10:08 AM
Ann Althouse said...

Tibore: I agree. Back when I got bitten by the cat, I had a post about the worst bites -- per the doctor -- and the first was human and the second monkey.

8/2/06, 11:38 PM

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