Mission monkey: Ahmedabad airport officials dress in bear costume to chase away langurs - watsupptoday.com
Mission monkey: Ahmedabad airport officials dress in bear costume to chase away langurs
Posted 07 Feb 2020 12:18 PM

Source: India TV

If you arrive at the Sardar Patel International Airport in Ahmedabad and see a bear roaming around confidently, do not be sacred because the beast is in fact an airport authority employee. This unique idea was taken up by Airport Authorities of India (AAI) claiming that there was a significant monkey menace and that it hindered several operational activities of the airport. Every day, for a certain period of time, airport staff dressed in ‘bear’ costumes can be seen chasing langurs off the aerodrome.

Several animals, including the black-faced, long-tailed langurs are seen wandering into the airport area as it is covered with a lot of greenery.

According to reports, the idea to shoo away the langurs were carried out seeking advice from wildlife experts after "meticulous planning which involved studying the behavior patterns of langurs."



"Passenger safety is a priority for us. There are a good number of langurs roaming in the operational area of the airport. The Air Traffic Control officials and other staff try to spot them, but we thought of being more pro-active. We got to know that langurs are scared of bears. Since we have a dedicated staff at the airport to scare away birds and animals that can endanger the safety of planes and passengers, we thought of employing them to pose as bears and scare away the simians. The langurs are fast despite being quite heavy. They could pose danger to aircraft. We are expecting good results," Ahmedabad Mirror quoted Airport Director Manoj Gangal as saying.

As per the data, in April 2019, two flights had to be diverted and ten more were forced to delay departure after about 15 monkeys entered into the operational area of the airport. In April 2017, ATC had to keep two flights grounded while several officials took the task of chasing away the monkeys.

There are several other instances where monkeys had wandered into the runways and created havoc because of which flights either had to be canceled or delayed significantly.

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