ERNEST KAO
ERNEST.KAO@SCMP.COM
PUBLISHED : Monday, 26 October, 2015, 4:41pm
UPDATED : Monday, 26 October, 2015, 5:31pm
Monkeys take over a basketball court in Tsz Wan Shan. Photos: SCMP Pictures
A park next to a primary school in Tsz Wan Shan had some unexpected visitors this morning: about 50 wild monkeys launched an invasion, foraging through rubbish and tearing through property.
Police were called to the Church of Christ in China Kei Tsz Primary School at about 11am after staff noted that the primates had taken over a neighbouring basketball court in the park. Some of them were seen scaling the school's walls and fences.
READ MORE: Hong Kong's monkey population increasingly harassing hikers and residents for food
Footage taken by passers-by showed the monkeys – feral macaques commonly found in the city’s country parks – tearing up the foam padding wrapped around the basketball hoop posts and searching through rubbish bins at a garbage collection point.
“Its common for maybe four to five monkeys to stumble into the park and some even enter the school grounds but we’ve never seen this many of them,” the school’s vice-principal Chung Chi-sum told the Post.
Policemen armed with shields stood by as Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department officers chased the monkeys out, baiting them with peanuts.
At least one monkey was seen caught in a net as others scattered and headed back into the mountains.
The park and the school are located at the foot of Sha Tin Pass and Lion Rock Country Park, where they are fairly common. They are also found in Kam Shan and Shing Mun country parks and Tai Po Kau nature reserve.
The school said no one was injured in the incident.
Despite efforts to control them, the monkeys eagerly chase country park visitors for food and have even strayed into far-off urban areas like Mong Kok and Tsim Sha Tsui.
To stabilise the population, the government sterilised 2,790 monkeys between 2007 and 2013, bringing the population down by about 15 per cent to roughly 2,000.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1872183/monkey-business-primates-invade-hong-kong-primary
