A 70-year-old woman has reportedly died after being attacked by a pack of monkeys in a restroom in India.
According to Times of India, the woman lived in Ramareddy village with her daughter. Though the daughter was not present at the time of the attack, she was the one to discover her mother with severe injuries.
Upon finding her moth in the restroom, the daughter rushed her to a nearby hospital. Unfortunately, however, she soon succumbed to her injuries and died.
Per officials on the scene, the monkeys didn’t bite the woman during the attack. Instead, they believe her cause of death was a fall she suffered trying to get away from the aggressive animals.
A spokesperson for Ramareddy Police Station explained that an investigation into the incident has been launched. The species of monkey responsible for the attack remains unknown. Experts suspect, however, that it was a pack of gray langur monkeys, a species commonly found in India.
Though not typically aggressive, langur monkeys can be a nuisance to the residential areas near which they live. Additionally, they have been known to attack when threatened or when attempting to steal food.
Monkey Terrorizes Village in Two-Month-Long Attack
Human and wildlife conflict has steadily increased in recent years due to a mixture of climate change and human expansion resulting in habitat depletion. As these issues worsen, human-wildlife conflicts will become even more common.
As climate change continues to wreak havoc on ecosystems, necessary resources like food and water become scarce. This encourages monkeys to leave their typical habitats and venture into populated areas, where the fight over food can cause attacks.
Though monkey attacks remain rare, the latest fatal incident was far from isolated. Early last year, a pack of monkeys killed a two-month-old baby in India by drowning the infant in a water tank. The child was reportedly sleeping next to his grandmother near an open terrace when the monkeys lept through the door and dragged him away.
Later in the year, a male langur monkey terrorized village residents for months. Over the span of 10 weeks, the vicious monkey damaged a dozen cars, attacked children, and shoved people from moving bikes.
“The langur has become a menace in our village,” a local resident told The Indian Express, per Newsweek. “We do not know where it came from, but it has no fear of humans. Children are the most vulnerable to attacks. We cannot leave our kids to play in the open even inside our homes.”
Despite these attacks, harming langur monkeys is strictly forbidden under the Wildlife Protection Act. Hunting a langur, even an aggressive one, can result in a three-year prison sentence and a hefty fine.