'Metabolic monkeys' to get a fitness program

SAKAI, Osaka Prefecture--Grossly overweight after years of being plied with bananas and onigiri rice balls by visitors, a group of monkeys at a park here will soon have to cope with a new regimen.

Alarmed by the weight gain among the roughly 50 macaques, dubbed the "metabolic monkeys," the municipal Ohama park has decided to build them a larger pen with horizontal monkey bars and a pool for exercise--hoping to give the monkeys a healthier lifestyle.

The pen will have about 50 percent more space devoted to exercise. It will be completed in the spring, Sakai municipal officials said.

Five of the most powerful males in the troop weighed 15 kilograms or more in autumn 2007, the officials said. The heaviest male tipped the scales at 29.2 kilograms, about three times that of an average Macaca mulatta monkey.

The park started keeping the macaques after citizens donated 25 of the animals to the city in 1937. The park steadily gained popularity after other animals such as horses and camels were introduced and an aquarium was built nearby.

However, after the aquarium was damaged by a typhoon in 1961, the horses and camels were sold off to other facilities. Only the monkeys remained. Gradually, visitor numbers to the park dropped.

The current enclosure where the monkeys live comprises a mound, where the monkeys usually perch, surrounded by a pool of water and a concrete wall.

For a long time, visitors threw in treats such as rice balls, peanuts and bananas, and the monkeys, who had already been fed by park workers, gorged themselves. As a result, some of the monkeys packed on the kilos, their round abdomens frequently touching the ground as they moved. Some observers said the overfeeding amounted to abuse.

Since June 2007, the park administrators began switching the monkeys' diet from starchy root vegetables to feed containing wheat, reducing their calorie intake by 60 percent. In addition, officials set up signs telling visitors not to feed the animals.

The efforts appear to be paying off as one regular visitor commented that "some of the monkeys' tummies touched the ground, but now you can see their legs."

But according to Shoji Hasegawa, head of the park administrative office, the drive is not complete.

"They appear to have become a little slimmer. But with the new facility, their environment will improve even more," Hasegawa said.

The new pen will measure about 250 square meters and have four playing facilities equipped with horizontal bars and other apparatus. A pool measuring 8 meters by 3.5 meters will also be a key feature, while the pen will be surrounded by a 6-meter fence with mesh wire to prevent visitors from throwing in food.(IHT/Asahi: January 5,2009)