BANGKOK, Thailand (Reuters) -- The western Thai province of Petburi had enough with monkeys proliferating in its towns, so it launched a plan for forced vasectomy to cut their numbers.
"We urgently need to control their population because the monkeys are annoying the town folk and tourists," said Vichai Polcharoen, chief of the local veterinary department.Provincial authorities last month ordered veterinary officials to employ marksmen to shoot male monkeys with drug pellets, to anesthetize them for vasectomies to be done.
The monkeys have been most uncooperative.
Last month, as veterinary officials were operating on seven males they had anasthetized, another group of monkeys swooped down from the trees and stole a bag of anesthetics from their van, forcing work to halt.