Authorities in Britain's tiny enclave of Gibraltar, fearful of a coronavirus epidemic among its famous Barbary monkeys, have banned tourists from touching the animals.
Local folklore has it that Gibraltar would cease to be British if the monkeys were to leave. AFP/File/JORGE GUERRERO
The macaques, Europe’s only wild population of monkeys, are a popular tourist attraction, and local folklore has it that Gibraltar would cease to be British if the monkeys were to leave the Rock.But now the government has decided to go a step further. “This is in order to minimise the risk of their contracting the disease and becoming ill or dying. Primates elsewhere have been known to be susceptible.
It published a bill “which will make touching or other interference with the natural behaviour of macaques an offence except under licence for management, research or veterinary purposes.”
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