BANGALORE: Ten bonnet macaques rehabilitated at Save Our Wild Life (SOWL), Bangalore, have been released in Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary (CWLS). All the macaques were screened for tuberculosis and faecal parasites, and dewormed before being released.

A wild male, which was found interacting with female macaques in the SOWL shelter at Kengeri, was caught and introduced into the group. He acted as the alpha male of the group. Three adult females which were together in a large enclosure at SOWL for a considerable period of time, formed the core female group with one of them being the alpha female.

Few subadults (two females) and juveniles (one male and one female) and infants (two males) were added to the group over two weeks. Once they were found to be reasonably boding as a group, the entire troop of 10 individuals were translocated to CWLS, around 100 km from Bangalore, and released in the wild in the third week of November.

Intensive post-release monitoring could not be done as relevant permits to study them continuously in the wild were not immediately available. Since, the animals can be individually identified by the SOWL-WTI team members, another trip is being planned to CWLS to see how they are faring.