Homo sapiens. Oh, really?

Seriously, you can't make this up!


Monkeys kill Delhi deputy mayor

BBC News
21 October 2007

The deputy mayor of the Indian capital Delhi has died a day after being attacked by a horde of wild monkeys.

SS Bajwa suffered serious head injuries when he fell from the first-floor terrace of his home on Saturday morning trying to fight off the monkeys.

The city has long struggled to counter its plague of monkeys, which invade government complexes and temples, snatch food and scare passers-by.

The High Court demanded the city find an answer to the problem last year.

Solution elusive

One approach has been to train bands of larger, more ferocious langur monkeys to go after the smaller groups of Rhesus macaques.

The city has also employed monkey catchers to round them up so they can be moved to forests.

But the problem has persisted.

Culling is seen as unacceptable to devout Hindus, who revere the monkeys as a manifestation of the monkey god Hanuman, and often feed them bananas and peanuts.

Urban development around the city has also been blamed for destroying the monkeys' natural habitat.

Mr Bajwa, a member of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is survived by his wife and a son, according to the Press Trust of India news agency.

(Source)

                                                                -------


Rumor has it that after the Rhesus macaques are gone, giant, man-eating gorillas will be introduced to get rid of the "ferocious langur monkeys."
:-P


Postscript

For the extended version — replete with rhinos and lions (in that order) — head on over to crufty's  :-D