EDITOR – In response to the letter by Dr Sally John that appeared in the Friday, 5 February edition of the Highway Mail, one can only advise that the doctor and her family are directly responsible for the injuries inflicted on the wild monkeys at her residence.
By feeding these wild animals, she is inviting them to desert their natural habitat and enter the dangerous unnatural city habitat of humans and cause the costly and painful damages – and sometimes death – of pet dogs and birds as well as trauma of bitten children so often reported in the media.
The doctor and her family are very lucky to have escaped these incidences so far and indicates, by her actions, less concern for her city neighbours who have not been so lucky so far and suffered. The best way to care for wildlife is, don’t feed wild animals and keep them in their natural wild habitat.
If you want to live with wild animals, then go live with them in their habitats on their terms and do not teach them to become pests in human habitats. The most humane treatment for the many marauding troops of wild monkeys prevalent in towns and cities is for the wildlife authorities and learned welfare enthusiasts to capture and relocate them, or failing that, to humanely cull them.
D Hoffman
Hillcrest
