TACLOBAN CITY - A large monkey reportedly attacked a farmer in Biliran province, a police report reaching here on Friday, July 10, said.
According to Maripipi Municipal Police, farmer Jeffrey Rosario, 34, and a resident of Barangay Olog in Maripipi town, was wounded after he tried to drive away a monkey that was pillaging his farm.
The police said the farmer thought the monkey would back down, but it, instead, attacked him. And after a brief scuffle, the animal ran away.
Rosario emerged with bites and scratches in different parts of the body after the encounter with the monkey, and was taken to the Rural Health Unit for treatment.
Maripipi Mayor Joseph Caingcoy, told reporters that there have been complaints coming from farmers in his town about monkeys taking their harvest from their farms.
However, Caingcoy noted that it was the first time that a monkey attacked anyone in the municipality.
He theorized that the monkeys may have become aggressive, and have resorted to pillaging farmlands because they have lost their own sources of food in the forests.
Caingcoy explained that forest clearings being done by farmers to give way to more land that could be utilized for food production may have also damaged the wildlife habitat, including sources of food, of animals in the forests.
“The monkeys could have been deprived of their daily sustenance, and were hungry due to the forest destruction, that was why they had to venture into the farms to look for food,” he said.