Langurs on campus to fight monkey menace

A langur deployed on the campus of G. Pullareddy Engineering college in Kurnool.PHOTO:U.SUBRAMANYAM

The idea to fight the monkey menace by deploying long-tailed black-faced langurs on the sprawling campus of G. Pulla Reddy Engineering College in Kurnool, is paying dividends.

Troops of monkeys swooped on the college campus everyday, causing scare among the students, took away their lunch boxes, bags, books and articles they could lay their hands on. Any number of security guards found it difficult to curb the monkey menace or drive them away.

The engineering college management decided to tackle the problem by deploying long-tailed black-faced langurs, whose mere presence scares away monkeys. “We brought three langurs from Vijayawada and deployed them on the campus four years ago and ever since, we are no longer troubled by the monkeys”, college principal B. Sreenivasa Reddy told

The Hindu .

Gradually the number of monkeys venturing into the college campus came down and the college authorities as well as the students are happy that they no longer have to guard their college bags and lunch boxes, at least from simians.

The three langurs, of which one is a female, patrol the territories earmarked to them on the campus. Maddaiah, a construction supervisor and his two assistants Lakshmana Murthy and Sanjeeva, armed with a long stick each, are assigned the task of taking them round the campus from 8 a.m. till the classes end in the college. They also carry crackers and match boxes in their pocket and fire them occasionally to scare away a monkey or two which vehemently try to enter the campus.

With a metal chain wrapped around their neck, the langurs follow their keepers. They are brought out of their resting sheds as students begin to enter the campus and go back to rest after they leave. The langurs are fed breakfast, lunch and dinners with fruits such as bananas, sapotas, raw lady finger, maize and groundnuts.

A veterinary doctor visits the college every week to examine the health of the langurs and give them necessary medicines. At dawn, the langurs get back to their sheds, where abundant fruits and water are kept, and rest till next morning. One langur fled from the campus when its chain rusted and broke. The other two are on the job since a couple of years.