The monkeys are at war in Thailand once again
Another massive brawl broke out in the monkey-populated streets of Lopburi
Last year, as quarantine began in most parts of the world, we were shown the terrible sight of Lopburi, Thailand’s monkeys taking to the streets to engage in a wide scale turf war. In the time since, we naively assumed that a lasting truce had been brokered between the city’s rival toughs, their wizened leaders sitting down in a neutral location over a nice bowl of overripe bananas to put a stop to such needless violence.
We were wrong. The Lopburi monkey gangs are back at it again, this time engaging in a pitched battle so extensive that it stopped traffic last Sunday.
The above video shows the massive scale of the showdown, its description explaining that the brawl involved three factions—”the Phra Prang Sam Yod group, the market group, and the Government Savings Bank lot”—scrapping over turf. “The motive of the battle is yet to be determined,” it concludes.
An article from The Indian Express provides more detail. Like last year’s big dust-up, the lack of tourism at Lopburi’s ancient Phra Kan Shrine and ordinary foot traffic from locals has reduced the amount of food the monkeys are able to get their little hands on, increasing competition for resources among the thousands of resident macaques.
Wisrut Suwanphak, the man responsible for filming some of the most intense combat journalism, told press that “he had never seen so many monkeys wrestling with each other before” and “likened [it] to a gangster fight in a movie.” He also said that nearby humans couldn’t break up the brawl and that “when people started to honk louder to disperse them, it only aggravated the matter.” The fight raged on until “the leader of the losing side resigned himself” and surrendered, retreating with his simian followers to prepare for the next battle.
It’s only natural that watching such an event makes us want to intervene—to find some way to help the monkeys so they no longer need to beat the hell out of each other over access to food. We’ll leave the wisdom of delivering international monkey aid to the experts, but, in the meantime, we can at least say with confidence: Throwing them Hot Cheetos may seem logical, but it’s probably not the answer to this issue.
[via Boing Boing]
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