Indian parliament hires monkey impersonators to restore order | World news | The Guardian

Indian parliament hires monkey impersonators to restore order | World news | The Guardian: "India's new government won an overwhelming mandate in the recent elections, and now it has taken on another parliamentary foe: marauding monkeys.

India's housing and urban development minister, Venkaiah Naidu, told MPs that 40 professional monkey impersonators would be deployed around government buildings to police the cheeky rhesus macaque monkeys who regularly trespass in the corridors of power, terrorising senior bureaucrats, stealing files and snatching food.

The human monkey scarers will disguise themselves as the macaque's natural nemesis, the larger, black-faced langur, Naidu said.

Reports suggesting the scarers will dress up as langurs are not true, said PK Sharma, the chief health officer for the New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC).

"These are men who are village performers and some of them have played monkeys on stage," Sharma said. "So they mimic the sound of the langur and it scares the smaller, red-faced macaques away."

If that doesn't work, authorities will use rubber bullets, Naidu said."



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