Monkey hunters accidentally shoot WOMAN with tranquilizer dart after complaints of rogue ape on the loose
FUJI JAPAN: A group of clumsy monkey hunters in Japan accidentally shot a woman with a tranquilizer dart. The tranquilizer knocked the woman unconscious. The incident took place on Monday, August 29, when the woman alerted authorities after she and several others saw a rogue monkey in their neighborhood.
According to a report by Sora News 24, the incident took place in Fuji City, Shizuoka Prefecture, after several witnesses claimed to have seen the macaque close to Fujikawa Station. To kill the monkey, three municipal workers and one expert in monkey hunting with tranquilizer rifles were sent to the area.
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When the team arrived, one of them unintentionally shot the woman in the arm with a tranquilizer dart as they were speaking with her and collecting information about the location of the monkey. According to city officials, one of the hunter's fingers slipped while taping the rifle's barrel to stop air leakage and accidentally pulled the trigger while the barrel was pointed at the kind woman.
Her bloodstream was immediately flooded with enough sedative to put a 33lb monkey to sleep. The monkey-hunting team quickly rushed the woman to the hospital, where she awoke an hour later. However, it took another hour for her to become alert enough to speak clearly. She sustained no injuries and was released later that day. The monkey, however, is still on the loose. Authorities in Fuji expressed regret for the error and pledged to conduct a thorough investigation. A policy review has also been ordered by authorities to stop accidental discharges from happening.
The incident happens in the midst of an odd wave of vicious monkey attacks that have been occurring lately all over Japan. The government had to start a crackdown after the predatory primates pounced on more than 60 people, causing mayhem. On July 8, 2022, a Japanese macaque entered a home in Yamaguchi city's Ogori district and attempted to drag a baby out of the window, inflicting multiple wounds. It was the first known macaque attack in Japan.
After the war, the government outlawed the hunting of Japanese macaques, which placed them on the endangered species list. As a result, their population steadily increased. This was also aided by the extinction of their two main predators, the Japanese wolf, and the mountain hawk-eagle, both of which were once abundant.
A study that appeared in the April 2021 issue of the journal Mammal Study suggests that the changing demographics of Japan may also be a factor in the rise in conflict between macaques and people. The report hypothesizes that over the past 50 years, people have moved from old, traditional rural villages to cities, leaving them to exploding monkey populations.