It started as a tourist destination, but the main attraction soon overran the town. In a story that seems to channel the spirits of both Michael Crichton and Charlton Heston, a scheme by Chinese villagers to support the local economy with dozens of tame monkeys has gone horribly awry.
In 2003, over a span of nearly seven weeks, the residents of Xianfeng village lured dozens of macaque monkeys down from nearby mountains. Xianfeng is located in China’s Sichuan province, where another tourist attraction, Mount Emei, is famous for its monkeys. The villagers were, perhaps, inspired by the mountainous monkey refuge, according to China’s CCTV News.
In the beginning, Xianfeng found success. Tourists flocked to see the monkeys, with investors following close behind.
“Every weekend and public holiday, the village welcomes thousands of visitors,” a stakeholder told CCTV.
But it would not last. After the death of lead investor Zhou Zhenggui in 2014, commercial support for the village dried up. Meanwhile, the monkey troop swelled to 600 animals, which began ransacking farms. (Where macaques are common, they can be pests; this presents a particular conundrum in northern India, where the animals are simultaneously icons of the God Hanuman as well as threats to the local Hindu farmers.)
Like humans, macaques are intelligent primates: Dario Maestripieri, a primatologist at the University of Chicago, once called the macaque “Machiavellian.” Also like humans, the monkeys can adapt to – and become nuisances in – diverse environments.
At Xianfeng the monkeys steal food, get into cacophonous fights and break into homes, CCTV News reports. On nearby Mount Emei, visitors to the monkeys’ habitat are now warned not to touch or feed the furry denizens, and to clutch valuables tightly as the animals have been known to abscond with objects and drape them from the treetops.
Even in urban Hong Kong, the macaques are not afraid of humans, nabbing food from human hands and convenience stores. One monkey led police on a two-day chase through the center of Tsim Sha Tsui, in what the South China Morning Post referred to as the “infamous 2001 Kowloon monkey chase.” The Hong Kong government has begun sterilizing the monkeys in the hopes of lowering the population.
Chinese wildlife authorities removed 300 monkeys from Xianfeng village. The other half still remain.
