More fruit trees in forests will stop monkey menace: Maneka

The Himachal Prdesh government should come forward with a contingency plan to plant fruit trees in forest areas to prevent monkeys from straying into urban localities, animal rights activist and parliamentarian Maneka Gandhi said today.
As the state has mostly pine forests, monkeys are straying into human habitats in search of food and destroying crops, Gandhi said during her visit to a Tibetan charity animal care section at McLeodganj here.
"If state government is interested in tackling the monkey menace it should increase the number of fruit trees in forest areas," she said, adding that the population of monkeys has come down drastically in the past few years.

Gandhi said the problem of monkeys entering into urban areas increased after plantation of pine trees instead of fruit-bearing varieties in the state's forests.