MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
For years, people across Nepal have complained about monkeys stealing food from their homes and farms. Now the government is conducting a monkey census to understand how bad is their monkey problem exactly. NPR's Omkar Khandekar in Mumbai has this report with Rajneesh Bhandari in Kathmandu.
OMKAR KHANDEKAR, BYLINE: At a crowded marketplace, Samuna Srestha (ph) guards her fruit shop with a slingshot. She's got her eye on two monkeys scratching themselves on a nearby rooftop.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Speaking Nepali).
SAMUNA SRESTHA: (Speaking Nepali).
KHANDEKAR: She says she can't take her eyes off them for even a second or they will swoop right in. Their favorite thing to steal is bananas, but even mango juice or cheese balls will do. Such thieving monkeys are on the loose across Nepal.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (Speaking Nepali).
KHANDEKAR: News channels report on their troops besieging villages, storming into kitchens and farms and feasting on fruits and corn.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (Speaking Nepali).
KHANDEKAR: Locals say they have tried chasing them with sticks, hurling firecrackers, blasting loud music. Some municipalities have tried to catch and relocate monkeys into the forests. Nothing's worked.
(SOUNDBITE OF MONKEYS CHATTERING)
KHANDEKAR: So last month, Nepal tasked a team of 18 zoologists and wildlife experts to do the country's first-ever monkey census. Dr. Hari Prasad Sharma is the census coordinator. He says the team visits neighborhoods with known monkey populations, counts them individually and calculates an average. But it's not been easy.
HARI PRASAD SHARMA: When they see us, and then they always become angry.
KHANDEKAR: So he says, while counting monkeys, his team avoids making eye contact with them. The first phase of the census, which focuses on the worst affected areas, will end in October. Policymakers will then figure out what to do. Sharma says monkeys entered human settlements because humans entered theirs. They cut down fruit trees, exploited water bodies and caused global warming. He says it's a man-made problem.
SHARMA: But we are blaming other animals.
KHANDEKAR: Yet monkeys get a bad name.
Omkar Khandekar, NPR News, Mumbai.
(SOUNDBITE OF GORILLAZ SONG, "DEMON DAYS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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