China is buying 1 lakh monkeys from Sri Lanka..!? Reason..?
China has demanded the importation of endangered Toque macaques from Sri Lanka. In many parts of sri lanka, Tok Macaque species of monkeys are more common. Officials have said that there are about 2 to 3 million monkeys in Sri Lanka. In this situation, it is said that this type of monkey destroys the crops in agricultural lands and sometimes these monkeys attack people too. Therefore, the Sri Lankan government has given permission for farmers to kill these monkeys. In this context, china has requested sri lanka to export the endangered monkeys to their country. china Zoo has sent a letter in this regard. Following this, the Sri Lankan government has given an explanation in this regard. minister Bandula Gunawardena has said that the Sri Lankan government has not held any discussion regarding the export of Toke monkeys to China. Furthermore, minister Gunawardena stated that this request has been made along with several proposals given by various parties regarding the import and export of Sri Lanka.
He also said that Agriculture minister Mahinda Amaraweera has proposed to export about 1 lakh monkeys to 1000 zoos run by a private company in China. Gunavarathana also said that a committee has been formed regarding the export of monkeys to china and that the committee is investigating the matter of monkey export. Meanwhile, Gunadasa Samarasinghe, a senior official of the Sri Lankan Ministry of Agriculture, said that a privately owned Chinese zoo company has made this request to our ministry. They will not export 100,000 monkeys at a time, but they have considered the request due to crop damage caused by monkeys in many parts of the country. They are not taken from protected areas. the focus will be on the monkeys that are destroying the agricultural areas, he said.Amid the economic crisis, a preliminary report on crop damage by wild animals in sri lanka has indicated that tok macaques and giant squirrels are responsible for damaging coconut crops, while elephants, wild boars, and peacocks damage rice fields. The report estimates that this crop damage caused a financial loss of about 30,215 million Sri Lankan rupees ($87.5 million) in the first half of 2022. So it is said that sri lanka will get money by sending monkeys to China. Meanwhile, environmentalists and conservationists have warned that the monkeys may end up in labs instead of zoos. china has only about 18 zoos, each of which houses about 5,000 monkeys, the organizations say. And Macaques are popular with human-like qualities, especially in the US and europe where there are clinical research centers. So it is possible that these monkeys are planned to be tested in laboratories. Therefore, environmentalists demand that China's proposal should be rejected and the toque macaque habitat should be protected. Native to sri lanka, the tok macaque monkey is classified as an endangered species by the international Union for Conservation of Nature.