The Department of Agriculture will deploy 500 monkey traps throughout St. Kitts to reduce the population of monkeys that are causing destruction to farm crops throughout the country. 

Minister of Agriculture, Marine Resources and Corporatives, the Honourable Samal Duggins in a recent interview said, “The monkeys have been a significant threat to our food security here in St. Kitts and Nevis and they are a nuisance to many of our farmers. Our programme here at the Department of Agriculture is to help to control that and improve our food security agenda.” 

Acting Director at the Department of Agriculture, Junelle Kelly  spoke on the issue noting that the Department of Agriculture has been dedicated to assisting the farming community with the establishment of the Feral Control Unit. 

“Here at the department, we have various traps at various sizes, we started with some smaller traps and now we are taking into consideration that perhaps we would want to have some bigger traps so we can catch larger numbers so we can ensure the food security of the nation,” she said. “We have been getting some results with our methods, however, we want to go a bit further as the whole point of the programme is to reduce the population because it has been affecting the farming community.” 

The Acting Director also stated that “We want to have this discussion and consultation with our stakeholders to come up with new ways and new avenues in which to reduce the population.”

The Department of Agriculture will hold a monkey control symposium during the month of February.