China “plans to use it for viewing”
Environmental group “Possibility of use for food and experiment”
Sri Lanka, which is suffering from a national default (default), is considering exporting 100,000 native monkeys to China. Local environmental groups are concerned that the monkeys will be supplied for food or laboratory use.
According to Sri Lankan media Economy Next and others on the 13th (local time), Sri Lankan Minister of Agriculture Mahinda Amarawira said that China had requested Sri Lankan ‘Tok Macaque’ monkeys as spectator monkeys to raise in about 1,000 zoos in China.
“We have formed a committee to review China’s request,” Amarawira said. However, details of the export contract, such as the sale price of the monkeys, were not disclosed.
The toque macaque monkey is a small species with a body length of 43 to 55 cm, and it is known that 2 to 3 million live in Sri Lanka alone. However, in Sri Lanka, toque macaque monkeys are considered ‘uninvited guests’ because they travel in groups of dozens and damage agricultural products.
Sri Lanka’s environmental authority removed the toque macaque monkey from its list of protected animals this year, along with wild boar and peacocks. Former President Maithripala Sirisena even allowed a large-scale monkey hunt, saying, “Monkeys are ruining a third of the crop.”
The macaque monkey is a common species in Sri Lanka, but it is included on the endangered list of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which manages flora and fauna worldwide.
When Sri Lanka came up with such an export policy, the ‘Environmental Foundation’, a local animal group, said, “There may be other intentions in China’s request for so many monkeys at once.” raised
Currently, Sri Lanka’s tourism industry, which was the main industry, has collapsed due to the Corona 19 crisis. As a result, Sri Lanka’s external debt surged and fiscal policy failures, such as tax cuts, made it difficult for the economy.
Sri Lanka, which declared default in April last year, negotiated a bailout with the IMF. As a result, on the 20th of last month, the IMF agreed to provide 3 billion dollars (approximately 3.9246 trillion won) of bailout funds to Sri Lanka over four years.
Source: Donga