Town in Kanagawa struggling with violent gang of monkeys

Problematic monkeys appear to be moving into abandoned homes .

Of course, it’s great to be involved in protecting the environment, but recently I can’t shake the feeling that people in Japan are increasingly in need of being protected from the environment.

Year after year, bears have been venturing deeper into inhabited and even somewhat urban areas, resulting in violence and damage.

Now, monkeys are beginning to take over the streets too.

That’s the case in the town of Yugawara in Kanagawa Prefecture, where a troop of Japanese macaques has been involved in numerous incidents of assaults, loitering, theft, harassment, and vandalism throughout the once tranquil streets of this popular hot spring area.

Yugawara has had monkeys roaming around the area since 1955, but one troop in particular, dubbed “T1”, is the first to have begun acting like a bunch of juvenile delinquents.

This gang of 20 simians is believed to have been responsible for 6,054 incidents in 2025 alone. ▼ A news report with numerous videos of monkeys walking around like they own the place Last month, a man in his 40s was attacked and bitten by one , marking the first time anyone’s ever been bitten by a monkey there.

It is unclear why these monkeys are suddenly turning against people, but the head of a local monkey control center believes some event in the past must have triggered their recent rash of violent, anti-social behavior.

Regardless, the animals are clearly well-accustomed to living around town.

They can be seen sitting around on roadsides and aren’t even spooked by an ambulance speeding by with its siren on.

Some experts suspect they’ve traded in their usual shelter of treetops for far more comfy abandoned houses on the edge of town , the result of Japan’s rampant population decline.

A survey in 2024 found 433 such homes in Yugawara.

In an effort to learn more about their behavior, the monkey control center managed to attach GPS trackers to two alpha males in the troop.

Using these, they’ll also be able to dispatch “monkey removal teams” who use firecrackers to shoo away the primates before they do any harm.