Village's monkey menace no longer a tourist draw

Villagers in Xianfeng, at the juncture of Southwest China’s Sichuan and Yunnan provinces face a dilemma.

Thirteen years ago, they lured wild monkeys down a mountain in a bid to attract tourists and alleviate poverty.

Now they have to keep driving the monkeys away, because the hungry animals destroy their crops.

Xianfeng, part of Taiping township in Panzhihua, Sichuan, was impoverished. When He Youliang, now 57, became its Party chief in 2001, the village had only a dirt road.

"Somebody told me if we could lead monkeys to the village, investors with an eye for the tourism sector might build a better road," He said.

In 2003, He and three villagers managed to find wild monkeys. But the animals were timid and would run away at the first sight of humans.

"We had to use corn to lure the monkeys to our village. The straight-line distance between the site in the mountain where the monkeys were found and our village was about 10 kilometers. But we spent 48 days leading 73 monkeys to the village with corn," He said.

The next year, Zhou Zhenggui, a local businessman, set up an ecological tourism company in the village to show visitors the monkeys. A road nearly 20 kilometers long was built by the company to facilitate access.

"The influx of tourists resulted in cash in villagers’ pockets as they could sell their homebred chicken and mutton. Each household purchased a motorcycle and many villagers drove their own cars," said He Fulin, a middle-aged villager.

"During the Spring Festival and the National Day holidays, more than 1,000 tourists flocked to the tiny village which was home to some 600 monkeys."

But in 2014, Zhou fell sick and died. His daughter tried to take over the company yet it stopped operations the next year and could not pay villagers for feeding the monkeys corn.

According to He Youliang, the company owed as much as 110,000 yuan ($19,773) when it folded.

Without easy access to food, the monkeys started to eat the crops in the fields and jump on the roofs of houses ripping up tiles.

In May, Hou Youliang and a group of villagers decided to drive the monkeys away. They waved their hands and shouted to scare the animals, sometimes using a hunting dog if the monkeys refused to withdraw.

"Each time, the monkeys would flee to a forest about six kilometers from the village in the mountain. But they would stage a comeback the next day. They have come back four times. We have to keep driving them away even though we love them — they have been with us for quite a long time," Hou said.

People in the forestry sector are against feeding wild monkeys, as they argue it makes them lazy and lowers their ability to survive.

"As there were too many monkeys in the village, workers hired by the forestry sector captured some 300 monkeys and sent them elsewhere in 2015. Now there are about 300 monkeys in the village," said He Zhizhou, chief of the forestry station in Taiping township.