BY RILEY COMSTOCK
Asmit Man Buddhacharya and his family have been the caretakers of the Swaynambhunath temple and its “Stuppa” for hundreds of years, he says. Buddhacharya himself has grown up there, and seen many changes; including changes in the monkeys.
The Swaynambhunath temple in western Kathmandu, also known as “The Monkey Temple,” is a UNESCO world heritage site that attracts many tourists, largely due to its unobstructed and high view of the city, and the large number of rhesus macaque monkeys (Macaca mulatta), that live in and near the site.
The monkeys, which are about the size of a large raccoon or medium sized dog, meander around the tourists, over the trees and wires surrounding the temple. They often raided the trash cans looking for juice boxes, energy drink cans, fruit peels and ice cream remnants.
Buddhacharyas and his family’s caretaking duties only extend to a few weeks of the year, but he he runs a small jewelry and souvenir shop year round. He has mixed feelings about the monkeys.
“The monkeys, they are mischievous,” Buddhacharya said.
He described one instance during a recent mating season where the male monkeys damaged parts of the temple infrastructure.. Normally, during mating season in the forests, the monkeys grab trees and shake them back and forth,to show dominance. The monkeys living around the temple started to grab metal poles and shake them, Buddhacharya said.
Some of the monkeys shook the metal poles and bars around the temple so hard they bent or broke. In one instance, some of the monkeys climbed the stupa at the center of the temple and shook a pinnacle on it so hard that it broke during high winds that followed, Buddhacharya said.
The temple is not actually dedicated to the Hindu monkey god, Hanuman. It is a Buddhist temple interwoven with Hindu shrines to various gods, notably Manjusri or Saraswati – the goddess of learning. But the Monkey Temple name is descriptive, and while Buddhacharya and other locals don’t love the temple being so heavily associated with monkeys, he acknowledges that the animals are always roaming around the complex, but do bring a lot of tourists.
Ambika Khatiwada, a senior conservation officer at the National Trust for Nature Conservation, said that these conflicts between wildlife and people are not uncommon in Nepal. While elephants and tigers are responsible for the most deaths – he said there are around 50 wildlife related deaths a year – human monkey conflict is a rising concern.
Monkeys harass people, destroy infrastructure and damage crops throughout the country. Buddhacharya and Khatiwada both noted that because they are considered a holy animal, so local authorities don’t consider a lethal management or trapping an option.
Some of this conflict is due to human demographic shifts.
“People are moving from the mountains to the cities,” Khatiwada said. As the villages empty, the monkeys start coming into the vacant areas, seeking food with impunity, he said. This increases the instances of human-monkey conflict.
Buddhacharya said that the monkeys at the temple are sometimes aggressive towards people, as they have become habituated to sugary products often left as litter near the temple. The monkeys are smart, he said, and recognize packaging and sometimes rip things out of people’s hands.
He remembers once when he was a little boy a monkey took an ice cream out of his hand, but he snatched it back, much to the monkey’s surprise. Over his years at the temple he has been bitten and scratched many times, but never really gotten sick from it. He has seen tourists bitten or scratched on many occasions.
One 2024 study extensively detailed how monkeys, specifically the macaques, come into conflict with people. They often raid crops and damage up to 30% of the total crop, lowering farmer income significantly in some cases. However, the study did note that the macaques “refrained from raiding crops with bitter or spicy flavors, such as turmeric, bitter gourd, chili, ginger, and mustard.” The most popular crop they raided was maize.
The paper also suggested several mitigation techniques, including sterilization programs aimed at curbing urban populations, natural barriers such as spiky bushes to deter them, and non-lethal management such as sprays and loud noises. However, several NTNC staff, including Khatiwada, said that the government does not extensively run these programs.
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