Hungry monkey gangs fight for food as lockdown keeps out tourists

Monkey gangs are battling for scraps of food as there are no tourists to feed them.

Traffic was held up for four minutes as they faced off in front of the ruins of a Buddhist temple in Lopburi, central Thailand.

The fight ended with one group being chased away, but the monkeys are growing increasingly desperate during this latest lockdown.

They are usually well fed by visitors, but a domestic travel ban imposed earlier this month, along with more people staying indoors, has caused another food shortage.

Officials have also tried to control the number of monkeys by rolling out mass sterilisation programs.

Onlooker Khun Itiphat said: ‘I was in a building near the temple when I heard the monkeys squealing.

‘There were so many of them all stood together.

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‘I could see they were having an argument. Then they all ran onto the road and began wrestling.’

One of the gangs is believed to roam the grounds of the temple, while the other is from an abandoned cinema.

A similar monkey brawl erupted in March last year when two gangs from opposite sides of a railway track began squabbling over food.

Before the pandemic, the town, around 100 miles north of Bangkok, was visited regularly by tourists who would feed the famous population of monkeys.

Supakarn Kaewchot, a government veterinarian, said: ‘The monkeys are so used to having tourists feed them and the city provides no space for them to fend for themselves.

‘With the tourists gone, they’ve been more aggressive.

‘They’re invading buildings and forcing people to flee their homes.’

Thailand brought in tighter lockdown measures in the capital, Bangkok, and 12 provinces, last week.

Most domestic fights were suspended and curfews rolled out as officials try to curb the spread of the Delta variant.

Thailand has just reported a record-breaking number of daily Covid cases, with 15,376 new infections and 87 new deaths.

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