Yamaguchi primate decides to pick fights with two other species.

After several months of bears dominating reports of startling wildlife encounters in Japan, it seems as though the nation’s monkeys have decided to take that notoriety as a challenge. We’ve recently been talking about the dreaded Troop T1, a group of monkeys that’s been running amuck in the town of Yugawara in Kanagawa Prefecture, where they recently surrounded and attacked a man who was out for a morning stroll on the city streets. Now comes an incident on the opposite side of the country, in Yamaguchi Prefecture, where a monkey not only attacked a man, but also reportedly decided to maybe drown a cat.

The man in question is a 49-year-old resident of the town of Shunan. He isn’t necessarily a pet owner, but he says there’s a stray cat that’s made its home in his garden, which has a pond. While the man was at home on Tuesday, at around 3:40 in the afternoon, he heard the sound of a loud splash coming from the pond, which he says was caused when a monkey came into the garden and threw the cat into the water.

While the man was rescuing the cat, the monkey, an adult roughly 50 centimeters (19.7 inches) in height, scampered up onto his roof and stared down menacingly at him. It then jumped back down to ground level, and when he turned away from it, leapt onto his back and clawed at him, leaving long scratches on his skin through the thick work clothes he was wearing.

The monkey then ran off, and the cat seems to have survived the encounter without suffering any severe injuries.

The Tokuyama neighborhood of Shunan, where the man lives, isn’t a major urban area, but it’s far from undeveloped countryside, and his home borders a fairly sizable road.

▼ The approximate area where the incident took place

This isn’t the only startling monkey incident the town has had recently, either. On September 8, in a separate part of Shunan, a monkey grabbed and tore the clothing of a local woman. Police have been stepping up patrols in the area and calling on residents to be cautious. Experts warn that should anyone run into a wild monkey, they should avoid provoking the animal, and also avoid making eye contact (as monkeys can perceive that as threatening behavior) while calmly leaving the area.

Source: Television Yamaguchi Broadcasting Systems via Yahoo! Japan News via Itai News, KRY Yamaguchi Hoso
Top image: Pakutaso
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