60% of Wakayama-ites prefer to kill Taiwanese monkies

[GaijinPunch]

I thought this was pretty brutal. I had to read to the bottom b/c I couldn't believe they would euthenize wild animals like this. Apparently there was a vote in which 60% of the citizens of Wakayama voted for euthenizing them.

That has to anger someone.

EDIT
Oops. Here's the link:
http://www.asahi.com/national/update/0823/TKY200508220345.html

 

[Grandpa Frank]

Hummm????

I'll bet the monkeys were really pi**ed off about it !!

Frank

 

[mad pierrot]

Aha! Wakayama's mad residents rise in fame!

Well, I didn't have time to translate the whole article yet (still using public computers) but I feel I should make a brief comment on this. I spent the last two years of my life living in an area of Wakayama where monkeys are seen as PESTS. They destroy crops and even attack people once in a GREAT while. From what I understand, there's even a bounty paid to kill them in some areas. So, this article didn't surprise me too much.

Heh, just last week I was driving near Sumsami's monkey "park" and saw a bunch by the road. Greedy little chaps.

 

[Elizabeth]

I guess I don't quite understand the distinction between trapping and exterminating, which has been going on since '02 and euthenizing, but with so few remaining anyway it is upsetting when the drive becomes for complete and total elimination. I can only assume a lot of people voted for vengence or fear of monkeys in general, not only against these Taiwanese hybrids.


Why not just haul them back to a zoo where their ancestors came....:?

 

[noyhauser]

MY family is from Wakayama, I've lived there for a significant portion of my life, and they are pests, I'd compare them to Coyotes in North America. They aren't cute and cuddly and they aren't native. They in part live off of human waste. I'd have a problem killing Coyotes because they are a native species, but this one is only there because of human interventions, and I don't think Zoo's are a fate much better than death. (and I'm sure the Taiwanese want more monkeys)

 

[GaijinPunch]

Yeah... I kinda like monkies though. I definitely couldn't kill one. The article did strike me as funny as it's totally okay to slaughter the Taiwanese monkies, but not the Japanese. While I do understand the Japanese counterparts aren't the ones making trouble, for a split second, it sounded kind of reacist.

 

[lexico]

Well, you do have a point there, Gaijinpunch; it's only a very thin line between overpopulation and extinction.
Such was the case with many extinct species or subspecies adapted to the local habitat. Are those Taiwanese monkeys all imports from Taiwan ?

How do they interact with the aborigines ?

 

[Horizon]

MY family is from Wakayama, I've lived there for a significant portion of my life, and they are pests, I'd compare them to Coyotes in North America. They aren't cute and cuddly and they aren't native. They in part live off of human waste. I'd have a problem killing Coyotes because they are a native species, but this one is only there because of human interventions, and I don't think Zoo's are a fate much better than death. (and I'm sure the Taiwanese want more monkeys)

They're the pests, huh? I don't particularly see them destroying the environment world-wide (not to mention in space and other planets as well...) nor introducing foreign wild-life to places where they just wouldn't be and then go psychotic on them as if it's somehow their fault that they're there and, thusly, screwing up nature in general.

In all reality, I'd have to say it's us humans who are real pests.

 

[Kinsao]

I guess it happens with all species, that sometimes a population of one species interferes with another - in this case monkeys and humans, but could just as easily be populations of competing animal species. In which case it always happens that one species tries to get rid of the other. But, humans are more 'thinking' than the animals and we need to be careful and make sure we cull in a sensible moderation and not risk putting species near to extinction.

 

[senseiman]

If memory serves Wakayama prefecture was the scene of a rather brutal massacre of Dolphins by fishermen that was caught on videotape by some environmentalists who claimed this sort of thing was pretty common in the area.

Whats the deal with this place and killing animals?