Marauding monkey captured in Shizuoka

Yukikochan, on the TV they were saying that the monkey had entered this house before. This time the owner chased it and it hid in the upstairs closet where the owner shut the doors on it. No suggestion that the monkey entered the closet out of curiosity, etc.

I'm surprised they didn't just shoot the monkey on sight as I've seen them do with bear cubs. Poor animals. Though I'm no expert in monkey behavior this seems extremely strange. Normally animals don't attack without reason and to hide in a small dark enclosed space instead of a high tree or something similar? It doesn't add up, there's something missing. Also 117 reported attacks (how many haven't been reported?) in less than two months seems quite extensive.

need to preserve more natural habitat for the monkeys, duh.

City workers and police drove the monkey out with a spray and then forced it into a cage.

And just how many Keystones did this involve...?

I wonder if they got the "Right" Monkey into the cage...?

There was a time in early Edo when guns were banned and animals like monkeys, bear and boar began to wreak havoc on the people's living areas and crops. It got so bad that the laws had to be somewhat repealed to allow for a measure of culling, I believe.

Read this somewhere, but can't recall the source of this information. Noel Perrin, Giving up the Gun, perhaps?

time to pull out the shot gun and start blasting the monkeys to monkey heaven.....make my day!

I assume they will interrogate it for the obligatory 23 days and then release it as they could not force a written testimony.

Japanese monkeys scare the crap out of me. They are aggressive little buggers. I got relatives living out in the country side and they have to deal with monkeys ruining their crops. Are these monkeys growing in numbers? Or is it just that people keep invading their natural habitat or maybe both?

No, but they often maraud (sp), even if English does not use this old French word in the verb form. ;-)

Do Monkey's always "maraude", or is that just another media cliche?

No; they have been known to saunter. Sometimes they even repose.

They obviously hate humans

Not obviously at all. If they did the injuries would be much, much worse.

People should look at the monkeys carefully, as their ears drop back before attacking.

Apparently this particular monkey's specialty was sneaking up from behind, taking a nip at a person's leg then running off. The first the person knew of the monkey being there was when they felt it on their leg.

I had a squirrel monkey when I was in High school, and when he bit, it really hurt and he was a little tiny thing. People should look at the monkeys carefully, as their ears drop back before attacking. Know the signs, and you should be safe. They will steal your glasses too.

They obviously hate humans, maltreatment perhaps in the past?

I would have locked the doors and take out my baseball bat and taken care of the problem first

And then you would have had to take care of the problem of monkey fur and blood all over the place, not to mention a good bit of damage to the room and possibly yourself.

The not-so-tough guy who called the cops, in contrast, is in line for a 20 man reward.

Called the police?? I would have locked the doors and take out my baseball bat and taken care of the problem first then call the police.

It got the taste of human flesh!

Send it to the Senkyou Islands. Keep out the Chinese. Just one idea.

Do Monkey's always "maraude", or is that just another media cliche?

It has been suggested that the monkey or monkeys are animals that have been kept in captivity and escaped. They don't act like normal wild monkeys, which means it may be impossible to release them into the wild in a safe location, or to integrate them with a monkey colony in a zoo. If it's a single animal, I'd suspect a misguided pet owner; if it turns out there's more than one of them, Frungy's idea of escaped research animals seems more likely. Normally you'd expect a lab to report any escaped animals, but who knows....maybe it's some backstreet joint operating without a proper license. Or maybe whoever was responsible for the animals thinks it will all blow over if they just lie low.

Either way, poor monkey. It must have been terrified.

apparently sneaked into a man’s house at about 1 p.m. and hid in the closet of a child’s room.

... okay, I'm no expert on monkey behavior but these monkeys are behaving very, very strangely. The logical question one might ask is, "Why did a stressed and aggressive monkey head for a small enclosed closet rather than the trees or high ground?".

I've never known a monkey to prefer an enclosed space over a tree or roof top. It's possible this might be one of the escaped monkeys from the research center and it associates enclosed spaces with it's cage back at the research center, but if it's not that then I'd suggest they test these monkeys for disease, since they're behaving very oddly. The only time I've seen a primate behave this way is when they're sick and dying and then they go and find a dark, quiet place and lie down to die away from the rest of the monkeys.

117 people have been bitten in the last 6 weeks or so? That is quite a lot. Could be time for people to start putting some serious 'fear of man' into the monkeys. They can kill a kid with ease. The local councils should be handing out crackers and air-horn blasters to everyone and start education people on how to discourage the little pests.

so Yuki Yoneyama will get Y200,000.- fate of monkey unknown ?!

The monkey was hiding in a closet ?Probably doing a costume change to get the coppers off his trail.