BABY KILLED AFTER MONKEY SNATCHES HER FROM COT THEN DROPS

[Daanyeer]

Newborn baby killed after a MONKEY snatches her from cot then drops her from roof


By Richard Shears

7th October 2010


A new-born baby died after being dropped from the roof of a house after being snatched from her cot by a macaque monkey.
The child's mother had left the room to visit the bathroom in her house in Seremban, 35 miles south-east of the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur.
When she returned, the child had vanished. The 26-year-old, identified only as Revathy, eventually found her infant lying on the ground, her face and neck badly bitten.
She had suffered multiple injuries as a result of being dropped from the roof.

Revathy's father-in-law, Valayutham, 70, was in the living room but he did not hear or see the macaque monkey enter the house through an open window.
'I'd gone to get a glass of water and didn't realise what was happening,' he said.
'When we realised the baby was missing, we frantically searched all over the house - then saw her body covered in blood lying outside'.
The family's home lies in an area surrounded by trees where a number of monkeys live. They frequently make their way onto the roofs of houses and are blamed for thefts of food.
The baby as rushed to hospital where she was pronounced dead. Wildlife officers were later able to identify the killer money in nearby trees and shoot it.
'We suspect the macaque was rummaging for food inside the house,' said Ishak Muhamad, director of the regional National Parks department.

'The baby died when it fell to the ground. The monkey had apparently released the new-born, probably because it was alarmed by the parents' shouts.'
Mr Ishak said that as soon as wildlife officers arrived at the house they set off with the baby's father, 29-year-old lorry driver Neru, to look for the monkey.

They saw the suspect animal in some bushes several yards from the house and when it began to act aggressively they shot and killed it.
It was later revealed that the family kept a female monkey in as a pet and this might have attracted the male.

'I can't believe this has happened,' Neru told Malaysia's Star newspaper. 'I rushed to the hospital only to be told that she was gone.


'She was our bundle of joy and we were looking forward to spending many happy years with her. I can't believe she's gone.'
It is not the first time that monkey's have dragged 'living prey' to a roof in Malaysia. A 35-year-old neighbour told how his pet dog was grabbed by one of the monkeys and taken to a roof before its badly bitten body was thrown from a tree.
A Malaysian expert in monkey behaviour, Dr S.Vellayan, advised the public not to make direct eye contact with monkeys because they might regard it as threatening behaviour and become aggressive.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z11gmyJiIG