Sad News From the Local Newspaper: Baby Killed by Macaque

Because I come from the US, a monkey-free zone, I always get excited when I see monkeys jumping around in the trees. I think it is cool that even in a large urban area like KL, there are still groups of free ranging monkeys around. On the return from the field trip to FRIM I was talking with Ryan Kopf, one of the other teachers from MKIS. Ryan said that they used to have problems with macaques entering the school. He said that, unlike other types of monkeys, they seemed so used to humans that they were not spooked by our presence and that they like to rummage in garbage cans etc. He likened them to smarter, meaner rats.

I still thought that it would be cool to have monkeys running around your school. However, my thoughts changed when I saw the headline in today's Star newspaper-"Macaque abducts, bites and drops baby from roof". Here is the first paragraph of that article.

"In mere minutes, a young woman turned from a happy mother to a grieving one when she lost her four-day-old baby to a wild monkey that was shot dead several hours later. In the 1.15pm tragedy yesterday, the macaque stole into the living room; snatched the child and fled up the roof of the house. The baby fell to the ground and died."

For the full story see- http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/10/7/nation/7176113&sec=nation

Update- Added After My Trip To Cherating

Macaques had the run of the hotel where I stayed in Cherating. Although it was very fun to watch them (I've never seen a monkey at a Motel 6 in Texas!), I can see that these macaques can be quite a problem. We were told never to leave doors or window open or the macaques would come in and make themselves at home. They were absolutely fearless, smart, giant rats! Once, when we got a bit too close, the male chased after us for a distressingly large distance with his distressingly sharp teeth. Luckily for me, I didn't have to be faster than the monkey, just faster than the slowest of my friends!

This cute little guy


and his not as cute Dad


were fun to watch until they started chasing me!