Observer Report
The wildlife experts on Thursday advised the citizens to avoid feeding monkeys strolling in the Margalla Hills National Park (MHNP)’s hiking trails and vicinity to avoid its bites and attacks while venturing into the national park.
An Islamabad Wildlife Management Board (IWMB) official has said that in a very rare instance a female monkey at Trail-4 attacked the wildlife official as he did not offer her any food item.
“Monkeys have their food or prey available in the natural environment and do not require artificial diet to survive. The human act of compassion to feed food to monkeys has made the animal dependant and in consequence retaliates if someone does not offer food.”
He said the IWMB through its social media portals and media briefs was creating education among the masses to shun their practice of feeding food items to any wildlife species in the national park. To a question, he said there were enough species that were the diet of monkeys and could better survive by feeding on them.
There was also the presence of a female Asian common leopard “Shezadi” at Trail-4 and was also observed on Trail-6.
