Message from the fourth monkey
Nature is healing, said far too many captions five-six years ago. Nature will have its revenge on humanity in the form of disasters, pestilence or even tentacle monsters, says the eco-horror genre. One can imagine many such correctives, but perhaps there’s still room for a little humour and irony in the dialogue between man and nature. And who better to deliver this gentle message than mankind’s own mischievous cousins.
Monkeys in Gibraltar don’t hesitate to eat the junk food that people keep offering them, from soft drinks to chocolate bars. The monkeys have also come up with a tactic to deal with the consequences of too much junk — eating mud to avoid upset stomachs. Junk food can apparently disturb the microbes in their digestive tracts, and consuming soil may help counter this. But there’s no guarantee the soil itself isn’t polluted, so for any ice-cream aficionados getting ideas from reading this, “human see, human do” would not be advisable.
The problem is one of enforcement; tourists aren’t actually supposed to feed the monkeys. The broader message — read it as being about unhealthy habits, consumerism or a hundred other things — is unsubtle. And perhaps, the image of the three wise monkeys, symbolising the maxim “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”, needs a fourth member: “Eat no evil”.
- 1The editorial's theme of unenforced rules against feeding wildlife directly relates to India's legal framework. The Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, particularly sections like 38J, prohibits teasing or feeding animals in a zoo, reflecting a broader principle of minimizing human interference. This legal duty of care aligns with the state's role as parens patriae for wildlife, a concept upheld by the Supreme Court to protect ecological balance.
- 2From a governance perspective, the failure to enforce rules in Gibraltar highlights a common policy challenge in eco-sensitive tourist zones. In India, this responsibility falls upon state forest departments and local administrative bodies, who must balance tourism revenue with conservation mandates under environmental laws. Effective governance requires robust enforcement, public awareness, and inter-agency coordination to prevent human activities from degrading natural habitats and altering animal behaviour.
- 3The Gibraltar monkeys' behaviour illustrates the ecological disruption from human-wildlife interaction. Their consumption of junk food and subsequent geophagy (eating soil) to mitigate digestive issues is an adaptive but risky response to an altered environment. This scenario underscores the dangers of introducing processed foods into wild ecosystems, potentially leading to nutritional deficiencies, disease transmission, and long-term behavioural changes that threaten local biodiversity.
- 4The ‘Eat no evil’ maxim connects to the socio-economic impact of consumerism and the regulation of unhealthy foods. In India, the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, empowers the FSSAI to regulate food products, while the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, tackles misleading advertisements. These statutes represent a state-led effort to mitigate public health consequences and the economic burden of lifestyle diseases linked to processed food consumption.