The monkeys
The wild monkeys in their hundreds are waging
war on villagers who used to feed them and are now raiding homes, fields and orchards to feed themselves.
According to Mirror UK, the open warfare broke out after villagers decided to start luring down monkeys from the mountain in the hope that they might prove to be a tourist attraction.
The project turned into a huge success, with the monkeys rapidly multiplying in number until they became an army of 600 and started attracting thousands of visitors.
But when the man who had funded the idea suddenly died from a heart attack , his daughter took over the business and managed to run it into the ground – leaving no money left to feed the monkeys.
Instead of returning to their mountain homes, the monkeys declared war on the villagers and have been raiding homes ever since.
Now a full 13 years after they were lured down it is believed they have forgotten how to care for themselves in the wild.
The mastermind of the project, He Youliang, had been party secretary of Xianfeng Village, located in the city of Panzhihua in south-west China’s Sichuan Province.
In 2003, together with a number of other villagers, He, now 47, began slowly coaxing a group of 73 rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) into his village over the course of 48 days.
Before he died he recalled: "Luring the monkeys wasn’t easy. We spent weeks throwing food onto the road leading to the village and were sometimes able to bring the macaques two or three kilometres (1 or 2 miles) closer.
"But whenever they became frightened they would run back into the mountains."
The entire operation was built on the premise that, should they successfully bring the monkeys to the village, the animals would help generate a new wave of income through tourism – and it worked, if only for a few years.
Thanks to the constant stream of food being given to the monkeys by local residents, the macaques eventually became accustomed to life in the village.
He then began searching for investors and eventually came across a local businessman named Zhou Zhenggui, who founded the Panzhihua Baoding Ecotourism company.
The village was transformed into a scenic park, with the firm hiring dozens of local villagers as monkey caretakers, responsible for feeding the macaques and monitoring the interaction between the primates and excited tourists.
Reports said the best years were between 2011 and 2014 when several thousand tourists arrived every day to see the macaques, bringing large amounts of money to the local residents, who could even afford to build new houses.
But everything changed in 2014 with the sudden death of Zhou by an undisclosed illness.
Zhou’s daughter took over the operations of the company and somehow managed to run it into the ground, leaving employees unpaid.
What used to be a booming business became half a dozen monkey handlers entertaining a dwindling number of guests from out of town.
The stream of money stopped and the village soon could no longer afford to feed its resident macaques, who over the years had multiplied to a population of over 600 – all expecting to be fed on a daily basis by the locals.
Villagers thought that the monkeys would simply run back into the mountains once the food ran out, but instead the animals began stealing fruits and vegetables and destroying entire fields of crop to feed themselves.
Local residents desperately called for help from the wildlife authorities, who agreed to capture and relocate 300 macaques last year.
But those remaining are still causing havoc, with little to no food to keep them at bay.
Panzhihua Baoding Ecotourism officially ceased operations after selling its last ticket at the end of last month, and Fengxiang villagers have no idea how to handle the current monkey crisis.
