GUWAHATI, April 5 - The State government has said steps have been taken to deal with monkey menace in farm lands across Assam.
�The government is aware that monkeys cause disturbance to the cultivators,� Agriculture Minister Atul Bora said in a written reply to the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday.
He, however, added that as monkeys are protected animals, application of chemicals and invasive methods like trapping and closed structure arrest are not allowed and are also not ethically correct to deal with the problem.
�Officials from the State Agriculture Department as well as Krishi Vigyan Kendra and AAU scientists use to conduct training programmes at field level in the affected areas from time to time to create awareness about the problem and advice the farming community to apply some indigenous technical know-how for managing the problem,� Bora said.
Among other such measures, he cited the use of mixture of red chilli powder with rice and oil to make bait, repellent measures like hanging of dried fish from tree branches, creating loud sound by use of firecrackers, erecting effigies of humans or predator species, planting crops like ginger, turmeric, brinjal, chilli, Assam lemon and marigold which are not preferred by monkeys, putting up mechanical and physical barriers like razor wire fencing around crop land and use of bio-acoustic gadgets.
