Wild macaques in the Thai city of Lopburi are currently being sterilized en masse in a bid to clampdown on the pesky primates — who are terrorizing metropolis citizens thanks to a dip in tourism amid the coronavirus pandemic.

With out visitors to feed and entertain them, Lopburi’s 2,000 monkeys have taken to aggressively wrestling food stuff from locals.

“They’re so applied to getting travelers feed them and the metropolis supplies no space for them to fend for on their own,” reported Supakarn Kaewchot, a federal government veterinarian.

“With the tourists gone, they’ve been additional intense, fighting individuals for meals to endure,” Supakarn explained.

“They’re invading properties and forcing locals to flee their properties.”

The monkeys reproduce at a rapid clip — so officers system to neuter 500 of the animals in the subsequent two months.

Officials use fruit to entice the critters into cages, the place vets sedate and shave them, tattoo the animals with a unique reference number, then place them on their backs for the vasectomy or tubal ligation.

Photos show a number of of the zonked-out primates lying side by aspect as they bear the operation, then cuddled jointly as they recover from the ordeal.

Every single monkey gets a person night time below veterinary treatment just before staying released back into the streets.

Supakarn said the purpose was to gradual down the species’ city growth.

“We’re not accomplishing this in the wild,” she claimed, “only in the city spots.”

With Article wires