The requested article has expired, and is no longer available. Any related articles, and user comments are shown below.
© 2022 AFPMarauding monkeys injure 42 in Yamaguchi
TOKYO©2025 GPlusMedia Inc.
Video promotion
The requested article has expired, and is no longer available. Any related articles, and user comments are shown below.
© 2022 AFP
67 Comments
Cricky
Initially only children and women were attacked. Recently elderly people and adult men have been targeted too," the official said.
children and women not a problem but Adult Men? That’s just a step too far. You can not disrespect a Male.
CaptDingleheimer
In the rural US, while we don't have monkeys, we have an unspoken plan of action for dealing with problem wildlife (protected or otherwise). It's called the '3 SH's': Shoot, shovel, and shut up.
theFu
Macaques are smart. I had a few get into my 6th floor room because I left the window open 1 afternoon. They took some very cheap sunglasses and a ugly hat, but nothing expensive. The entire room was in disarray from their visit.
I've had a run in with Macaques at a temple - they are all friendly and cute - until they aren't.
bass4funk
Lol, so true.
Meiyouwenti
Now that monkey pox has arrived in Japan, I hope these monkeys won’t contract the disease and spread it to humans.
Kyo wa heiwa dayo ne
People are generating a phobia about monkeys because of the monkeypox virus ?
Hiro
if they can't find the culprit, it is possible a parent manage to kill it and secretly buried it without telling the authorities. I know i would.
Yrral
A monkey is almost 5 times stronger than an human
The Avenger
Monkey business
Newgirlintown
Cricky: “children and women not a problem but Adult Men? That’s just a step too far. You can not disrespect a Male.”
What on earth are you talking about?
virusrex
Monkeys have never been the main rout of transmission from animals to humans, those would be rodents.
As the article clearly says, it would be because of unusually high number of attacks.
John-San
They USE to get on my roof and defecate. USE to.
rcch
Understandable.
AgentX
Take away their natural, poly-cultural food sources (which Japan does so well) and they become a problem at the foothills...
This is a never factored in when city folk bang on about how Japan is not overpopulated. Too much monoculture already, and still Japan can't feed itself...
Rodney
Rather be scratched my a monkey than what I experienced being bitten by a snake.
Good
Monkey pox cluster
commanteer
That would have been horrifying.
Tom San
Curious George never bit anyone.
GBR48
This made the news in the UK. Get a researcher in to see what has changed for the monkeys in terms of food and environmental factors and see if you can fix it. Maybe drop some food from a chopper some distance away from people, to move them away. And have a recording of a large, angry dog barking on your smartphone.
Anonymous
Ha, ha, ha. Nice one.
It seems it’s macaque story time. 4-5 years ago as I was bicycling south on Rt339 from Aomori-ken’s Cape Tappi and along the Sea of Japan I came across a macaque road kill. It was huge. There were other, smaller macaques within 10 meters just sitting. I reckoned it was the Alpha male partly squashed with his widow(s) and young waking him. I have wondered since just how long they stuck around. End of the troop?
Bob Fosse
Don’t be coy. If you have an opinion don’t tap dance around it.
Andy
It is not the fault of our closest relatives that their habitat has been destroyed in an extremely over populated country, be respectful to your cousin's.
Readyfortakeoff
Time for a cull
stormcrow
The monkeys are so damn clever. One of my students, a Japanese housewife in her 40s, was visiting a castle in Yamaguchi prefecture. She was off walking around by herself without her husband when she was confronted by a single monkey standing directly in front of her. As she stood there, another monkey came and stood off to the side of her, then another and another, and soon she was completely encircled by a group of monkeys. She said it unnerved her, but luckily her husband saw what was happening and he came shouting and the monkeys broke up and took off running. She also told me that the monkeys singled her out because they knew she was a female. They can distinguish the human females from the males.
noriahojanen
In my urban neighborhood there have recently appeared a number of Japanese deer families wandering around, which I feel is a quite unusual phenomenon. Has something to do with climate change?
Sanjinosebleed
Hey Stop monkeying around!.....:)
A few BB pellets to the backside should teach them some manners. I had feral cats shagging outside my window at all hours when living in Japan. I popped acouple of BB caps in his @$$ problem solved ...;)
therougou
More likely they are searching in one big group of 50 people instead of splitting up and covering more ground.
Tom San
These monkeys could have Monkeypox and should be quarantined.
Rodney
to save money and time, it is because of global warming/climate change effect on natural sources of food drives them more despite to find food, and with an aging population, there are less farmers so human contact, competition is more likely. Same with bear attacks.
AgentX
There's a word for people like you...
AgentX
And I'd love nothing more than to catch you doing it...
G&T
Have the authorities investigated if there is a scientific connection between monkeypox and these monkey attacks. I wouldn’t be surprised if the guy who got it had been in that town. GPSS phone data can be checked.
Chabbawanga
kill them all. they pose a threat too the japanese public.
El Rata
Just kick the monkeys to until they either retreat or die, humans are larger in size, just fight back.
Sanjinosebleed
Cool? Awesome? Witty? Come on don't leave me hangin....
Kyo wa heiwa dayo ne
@Hiro
So Hiro your openly admitting that you would kill a monkey illegally and secretly bury it.
What if the monkey was infected with a virus and the body not handled correctly putting populations at risk.
Even if the monkey wasn't infected with a deadly virus other diseases can arise from the corpse.
I would think more carefully what you admit you would do on a national news site.
Your admitting to making a crime and perhaps you've done it already
BeerDeliveryGuy
Humans are also about 3 to 5 times larger than a pitbull. Go ahead, kick a pitbull, go kick a whole pack of pitbulls. Tell us how that turns out for you.
BTW, in the ye olde times, when dog fighting pits were still common, monkeys were often pitted against dogs. The monkeys usually won.
daito_hak
Here it is. A dude does not know what he is talking about but still absolutely feel the need to spread misinformation. This is baffling, are you seriously saying this?
Dude, HIV infection in humans came from a type of chimpanzee in Central Africa. Studies showed that HIV may have jumped from chimpanzees to humans as far back as the late 1800s. The chimpanzee version of the virus is called simian immunodeficiency virus. It was probably passed to humans when humans hunted these chimpanzees for meat and came in contact with their infected blood. Over decades, HIV slowly spread across Africa and later into other parts of the world. The virus has existed in the United States since at least the mid to late 1970s.
We are talking here about one of the worst viral infection humanity has got, which killed more than 36 millions people and you come here to claim that monkeys have never been a route of zoonotic transmission? What's wrong with you?
STOP TO GIVE YOUR POINTLESS OPNION ABOUT THINGS YOU DON'T KNOW.
painkiller
This is pure denial that flies in the face of science, especially by someone who believes the disease is named after a "place"!!!
This false belief falls trap to the message the WHO is trying to spread in an attempt to change the name of the disease because it thinks it is "racist".
daito_hak
BS! There is no evidence showing that there is any natural reservoir of monkey pox in Japan. In fact the exact reservoir(s) of monkey pox has not been identified yet and how virus circulation is maintained in nature.
virusrex
So can you find any source that mentions monkeys being the main route of transmission?
No? well that is because it is not. Your personal attacks do not replace actual reference that would prove your point, the main vectors of transmission for humans are rodents, so the one that is contradcited by scientific knowledge is you.
Once you give up trying to base your beliefs with actual references and end up just making baseless personal attacks you are making obvious you understand you are mistaken but still want to attack the people that disproved what you believed.
It is also completely against the rules you agreed to participate here.
browny1
@stormcrow - had a very similar experience.
When my 2nd daughter was born went back to a rural area where I used to work to show her off to my friends.
We stopped the car on a mountain road to quickly check out a small temple.
When returning to the car it was surrounded by what I can guess was a full troop - big males, females with babies, young adults etc.
Their gaze was especially fixed on my wife and our 3 month old baby in a stroller. I didn't shout or anything as startling them was probably not a good idea I thought.
A few came really close and I never got any "hey let's be friends" vibe at all.
An unnerving couple of minutes slowly moving to and getting in the car.
As a first close-hand experience I was really surprised at the size of the big males - like way bigger than I'd seen before - with teeth and hands to match.
And maybe it's a dose of anthropomorphism - but I swear there was a deliberate calculation in their stares and actions.
Scared the begeezus out of us.
virusrex
Why would it be any connection? what kind of report would make anybody think about this possibility except for the name?
You mean the expert that clearly explained why the name is not appropiate and clearly said the main vector of transmission for humans were rodents? you never provided any reference that contradicted him. Which means he is still correct and your personal opinion mistaken.
Did you finally found any kind of reference where monkeys were a common source for human infections? its been weeks since you were asked to sustain your personal opinion with a source already.
Tom San
I'm glad I am trained in martial arts.
John-San
1080 is a excellent method to control feral pest. Back up with removal. It will also kill other pest that find the bait yummy. This is hard mammals have acute smell but these new favor have a higher hit rate but could be due just to prefer tastes. More testing will determine the best favor for the perfer pests. This is the best method because the pest will enter the bush and find a quite place to die peaceful. Today scientists take great care in designing painless baits.
painkiller
The answer is obvious to anyone who has been following this story.
No, I mean you, as you claim monkeypox is named after a "person" or a "place"!
Incredible thought.
You continue to deny the science?
Paul
It is time to start culling them, there are just too many of them and they are getting out of control. I do not understand why this has not been done before, there is no fear of them becoming extinct...
daito_hak
What? Are you stupid? Instead of admitting you are wrong, you try to twist the argument. Main route means nothing, this is not scientific. This is garbage talk. Again we are talking about one of the most deadly virus ever passed to humans and you stated that monkeys have NEVER BEEN a route of zoonotic infection. Which is flat out wrong boy. You don't know what you are talking about, that's the plain truth and now you play the victim by playing the personal attack BS. You speak of reference but you damn don't give any of it to back up your stupid claims. Where are you references?
Blah blah what? Write correct English to start.
So I am mistaken, really? So you are claiming that monkeys don't spread decease to people, right? So risks from monkey don't induce herpes B virus, and rabies or?
https://www.cdc.gov/herpesbvirus/index.html
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/4/1/98-0117_article
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4022521/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21872789/
So now who is mistaken?
Frank Ellis
Monkeys cannot be trusted.
Check out this horrid video of a true life story and you'll know why.
https://youtu.be/wgS0KgT5APc
Joe Blow
They might class Osaka up if they do lol
Joe Blow
They should be PCR tested, vaxxed, and put in quarantine hotels ;)
Sven Asai
Now be strong and face the truth. Peaceful coexistence turns out to be an illusion again. It obviously works almost nowhere, except of a few symbiosis cases. Not even between humans themselves as the many conflicts teach. Ukrainians or Russians, only one will make it. So how can it work between humans and wild animals? Them or us, corona viruses or us, bears and boars out of the forests or us, and in this specific case those little monkeys or the villagers. It’s a competitive world, right out from the genetic prerequisites.
daito_hak
Here is also a non exhaustive list of common primate viruses with known human transmission case:
Monkeypox virus ( Poxviridae )
Lymphotrophic polyomavirus (LPV)
Herpes B virus
Simian foamy virus retroviridae (SFV)
Simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) retroviridae
SV40 Polyomavirus
Titi monkey adenovirus (TmAdV)
Zika fever
rabies postexposure prophylaxis (PEP)
Saying what still?
wallace
Monkeys are having a bad hair day. Marauding monkeys and monkeypox.
The marauding monkeys are just doing what monkeys do. Monkeypox wasn't imported to Japan by monkeys.
daito_hak
@virusrex
And have a nice day. Try to read so that you are less full of nonsense and you don't spread BS.
John-San
Lastest technical advances in removal of pest should be used. Not a person with a gun. Now we have the wonder killer. It digital control scanner that can recognise mammal and can be set in a target certain pest with injury to others wildlife. The system software recognizes a feral cat and shoots a gell cap that spreads over 10cm area. Cat prime themselves by licking. The cat lick the gell and die peacefully. if the software a mistake a deer the deer will not lick the gell. So I assume the new digital scanner could be set up for pest monkeys who do prem each other. It could easy wipeout the pest troupe in 24 hours.
Disillusioned
I hate monkeys! They are too smart and too strong. They are a menace anywhere they mix with people. Thailand, India, Indonesia, South Africa. I've visited all these places and avoid the monkeys. They are not cute! They are a menace!
virusrex
The obvious answer is that there is no relationship believable, which would make the investigation pointless.
Again making baseless accusations? the article explained why monkeypox was not an adequate name, you making up things other people never said only evidence you have no argument and have to make up false accusations in order to argue.
What science? you have presented none, just what you believe is true even when contradicted by an actual expert.
virusrex
Not twisting anything this is exactly what you said was false and even quoted. So do you have any source that actually proves this to be false? else you will have to accept the comment is correct even if you mistakenly believed so.
Also not, main route of transmission is a perfectly valid term even if you ignore it, the same as happened when you said escape mutants were nonsense just to be proved as another perfectly valid term.
For example
https://www.straitstimes.com/world/why-monkeypox-may-soon-get-a-new-name
There, can you find a source that demonstrate Dr Oyewale Tomori, a virologist at Redeemer's University in Nigeria is wrong?
Is that your answer instead of sources that disprove what you quote? you are making too ovious you have no argument.
none of your references says monkeypox is transmitted to humans manily from monkeys, not even one, The fact that you have to make up an argument nobody has said (that monkeys do not transmit diseases to humans) instead of addressing the actual argument used (that monkeypox is not transmitted to humans mainly by monkeys but by rodents) clearly shows you already understand you can't disprove it.
That would still be you, that said rodents were not the main route of transmission to humans but failed to prove it.
John-San
Dis. Hate a harsh word. I also dislike monkey for only one reason. Onsen. You can find a natural onsen now days without worrying it has been foul with filth and decease by monkeys. Also their annoying cuteness or cuteless has I perfer. I also get a really bad taste in my mouth when reminded the we are desendents. I still believe I descend from the beer of K9.