A lot of Vervets’ natural food sources have been destroyed, causing them to forage in public places. They can quite easily become a problem if they find a constant easy source of food, which hospitals, hotels, tea gardens, in fact any open area where humans tend to throw away food.
Public areas are probably the most difficult areas to control when vervets start troubling people, due to the fact that you have so many uncontrollable factors involved. The main one being the public visiting these areas and unless you get them to understand the seriousness of the problem and that they must not feed or try to interact with the monkeys you will never solve the problem.
How To Make Your Garden an Unattractive Target For Vervet Monkeys
The Whys, Whens and What Can I Do’s
There are various reasons why Vervet monkeys can become a problem, here is a list of the most common:
- People offer Vervets food to get them closer to watch their antics
- Food is left unattended on tables in areas where Vervets forage
- Food sources have become depleted due to development
- Rubbish bins are not secure enough and have waste food in them
- Un-picked fruit on trees and or ripe fruit on ground attracts them to the area
- Buildings were erected in there natural foraging area.
There are a few things we can do in these situations:
- Recognize the sources of food and take steps to stop it being easily accessible.
- Refuse bins must be kept properly closed and monkey proofed
- Visitors must be informed of the problems caused and told to refrain from feeding any wild animals and or leaving food lying around.
- Signs should be placed around informing people not to feed the monkeys.
- When airing rooms don’t leave food or fruit out, keep that part till just before visitors arrive.
- Waitrons should remove leftover food on tables as soon as possible and preferably before or while patrons are still at the table.
- Use catapults with pieces of potatoes to scare of monkeys, this wo’nt hurt them.
- Place a feeding station between the problem area and where monkeys come in and discard all edible waste there (last resort).
- Always discourage the monkeys when seen.
