While Hong Kong's human birthrate is falling, it is facing an explosion in its primate population, a news report said yesterday.
The monkey population in Hong Kong is nearing 2,000 and rising at the rate of around 6 percent a year, according to the South China Morning Post.
That contrasts sharply with the birth rate among the city's 6.8 million human population, which has become one of the lowest in the world at less than 0.8 babies per woman.
Monkeys live mostly in Hong Kong's rural country parks, where experts said hikers are feeding them and helping the population to grow at three times the normal rate.
De-population of villages in the New Territories, where locals would once have kept the monkey populations down, was also cited as a factor in the growth of the primate numbers.
Officials are looking at ways of trying to bring down the population growth of the monkeys -- all of the grey macaque species -- who are increasingly becoming a nuisance.
When the monkeys get used to being fed by hikers, they will grab bags of food from country park visitors or raid village homes and temples for food.
Monkey expert Jane Goodall, on a five-day visit to Hong Kong, told the newspaper: "Monkeys here are taking too much of the wrong food, such as human food, which is usually fatty and bad for their health.
"This has boosted their fertility and also made them obese. ... It is very urgent to enforce a no-feeding [policy]."
Goodall warned that if wild animals and humans get too close, there is a danger of primate diseases jumping to humans as had happened with the deadly H5N1 bird-flu virus.
Human infertility rates in the city have climbed, with experts blaming stressful lifestyles and a lack of exercise among the young.
‘EYE FOR AN EYE’: Two of the men were shot by a male relative of the victims, whose families turned down the opportunity to offer them amnesty, the Supreme Court said Four men were yesterday publicly executed in Afghanistan, the Supreme Court said, the highest number of executions to be carried out in one day since the Taliban’s return to power. The executions in three separate provinces brought to 10 the number of men publicly put to death since 2021, according to an Agence France-Presse tally. Public executions were common during the Taliban’s first rule from 1996 to 2001, with most of them carried out publicly in sports stadiums. Two men were shot around six or seven times by a male relative of the victims in front of spectators in Qala-i-Naw, the center
Incumbent Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa on Sunday claimed a runaway victory in the nation’s presidential election, after voters endorsed the young leader’s “iron fist” approach to rampant cartel violence. With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Council said Noboa had an unassailable 12-point lead over his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez. Official results showed Noboa with 56 percent of the vote, against Gonzalez’s 44 percent — a far bigger winning margin than expected after a virtual tie in the first round. Speaking to jubilant supporters in his hometown of Olon, the 37-year-old president claimed a “historic victory.” “A huge hug
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is leaning into his banking background as his country fights a trade war with the US, but his financial ties have also made him a target for conspiracy theories. Incorporating tropes familiar to followers of the far-right QAnon movement, conspiratorial social media posts about the Liberal leader have surged ahead of the country’s April 28 election. Posts range from false claims he recited a “satanic chant” at a campaign event to artificial intelligence (AI)-generated images of him in a pool with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. “He’s the ideal person to be targeted here, for sure, due to
DISPUTE: Beijing seeks global support against Trump’s tariffs, but many governments remain hesitant to align, including India, ASEAN countries and Australia China is reaching out to other nations as the US layers on more tariffs, in what appears to be an attempt by Beijing to form a united front to compel Washington to retreat. Days into the effort, it is meeting only partial success from countries unwilling to ally with the main target of US President Donald Trump’s trade war. Facing the cratering of global markets, Trump on Wednesday backed off his tariffs on most nations for 90 days, saying countries were lining up to negotiate more favorable conditions. China has refused to seek talks, saying the US was insincere and that it
RSS