IGIA ‘gets’ its monkey

New Delhi,October 14

AFTER EVADING “arrest” for the past two weeks, the monkey, which had made the IGI Airport’s international area its home keeping the entire airport administration on its toes, finally fell prey to traps on Sunday night.

At 9:30 pm, the unsuspecting simian decided to pick up a banana that was lying in the airport area, not knowing that it was one of the hundreds of baits laid in and around the airport by rescue workers in the past two weeks.

“We had placed baits of fruits at aircondition ducts, security hold area, and virtually everywhere the monkey had been frequenting. Finally the efforts bore fruit,” said Kartick Satyanarayan, head of Wildlife SOS, the NGO that has been conducting the operation ever since the monkey made its way inside the airport.

     The monkey, which had once outsmarted a formidable team of officials from zoo, the forest department and the NGO finally got conned by the sundry fruits lying around.

     “We had kept fruits in open traps. The monkey had got used to sourcing fruits from there. We were waiting for it to get conditioned to this easy source of food. It finally worked,” Satyanarayan said.

      The rescue workers are so impressed by the monkey that they have decided to keep it under observation for a few days to study its behaviour.

      “We are in discussion with the forest department to chalk out a suitable relocation plan for the monkey. It was vaccinated after capture,” he said.