07-25-25 - Thailand Province Has A Monkey Problem Trying To Round Up 2500 Of Them

Summary

Holmberg's Morning Sickness - Arizona Episode Summary: July 25, 2025 Episode Title: Thailand Province Has A Monkey Problem Trying To Round Up 2500 Of Them

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Introduction

In this episode of Holmberg's Morning Sickness on 98 KUPD, Host John Holmberg, along with his co-hosts Brady Bogen, Bret Vesely, and Dick Toledo, delves into a pressing environmental and tourism issue unfolding in Thailand. The discussion centers around the burgeoning population of macaque monkeys in Lopburi, a province renowned for its temples and as a tourist hotspot.

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The Monkey Invasion in Lopburi

Timestamp: 02:50 - 04:10

John Holmberg introduces the main topic by highlighting the escalating monkey population in Lopburi, Thailand. The province is grappling with approximately 2,500 macaque monkeys that have become a nuisance in both residential and tourist areas.

• John Holmberg mentions, "These Thai monkeys are being arrested. And it's a huge problem because they...” (03:35)

The hosts discuss how these monkeys are not only disrupting daily life but also affecting the local economy by deterring tourists who visit temples like the famous Phra Prang Sam Yot, known for its monkey inhabitants.

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Impact on Tourism and Local Communities

Timestamp: 04:10 - 07:00

The conversation shifts to the broader impact on tourism and the challenges faced by the locals. The monkeys frequently invade restaurants and tourist sites, leading to confrontations and unsafe conditions.

• Dick Toledo humorously remarks, "Their nipples look like your pinky finger, as in caterpillars or worms depending on the color of course of their skin.” (02:05)

The hosts lament the cultural significance of these temples and how the monkey problem threatens to tarnish Lopburi's reputation as a tranquil tourist destination.

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Attempted Solutions and Their Consequences

Timestamp: 07:00 - 12:50

The discussion moves to the local authorities' efforts to manage the monkey population. Plans to round up and possibly slaughter 2,500 monkeys have sparked controversy and ethical debates.

• John Holmberg states, "They're gonna do a big... a huge monkey slaughter this week.” (04:41)

Proposed solutions include relocating the monkeys or implementing stricter controls to prevent their interactions with humans. However, these measures face opposition due to the monkeys' protected status and cultural importance.

• Bret Vesely suggests, "Let's bring a couple of leopards back to the temple area.” (07:23), highlighting the chaotic nature of potential solutions.

The hosts creatively explore hypothetical and humorous methods to control the population, such as introducing predators like panthers or hyenas, which only adds to the complexity and absurdity of the situation.

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Ethical and Environmental Considerations

Timestamp: 12:50 - 16:45

The conversation deepens into the ethical implications of culling animals to protect human interests. The hosts express concern over the welfare of the monkeys and the environmental impact of such actions.

• John Holmberg questions, "What are you gonna do? We're probably enclosing... They're not gonna be alive when you enclose them?” (12:31)

They debate the balance between preserving wildlife and maintaining public safety and economic stability. The episode underscores the tension between tourism-driven economies and sustainable wildlife management.

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Conclusion and Reflections

Timestamp: 16:45 - End

As the episode wraps up, the hosts reflect on the broader lessons from Lopburi's monkey problem. They emphasize the need for humane and sustainable solutions that respect both the animals and the communities affected by them.

• John Holmberg concludes, "Anywhere I go, a monkey takes my... I'm punching that thing as hard as I can.” (11:33), highlighting personal frustrations while underscoring the universal challenges of human-wildlife coexistence.

The hosts commend the efforts of local authorities while urging listeners to consider the complexities of wildlife management in tourist-heavy regions.

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Notable Quotes

• John Holmberg: "They're gonna round up 2,500 monkeys that hang around this temple. Think about that.” (04:10)

• Dick Toledo: "I did try out the 80 year olds. He said, I'll tell you this, their nipples look like your pinky finger.” (02:05)

• Bret Vesely: "Let's bring a couple of leopards back to the temple area.” (07:23)

• John Holmberg: "What are you gonna do? We're probably enclosing them. Very easy. Very easy to do.” (12:35)

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Final Thoughts

This episode offers a compelling look into the challenges faced by Lopburi, Thailand, as it seeks to manage an overpopulated monkey community. Through engaging discussions and insightful commentary, Holmberg and his co-hosts shed light on the delicate interplay between tourism, wildlife conservation, and community well-being. Listeners gain a nuanced understanding of the complexities involved in balancing human interests with environmental stewardship.

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Transcript

[Host 1]

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[Host 5]

None of the fluff.

[Host 6]

Let's get started.

[Host 5]

There's more of the best of Homebrew's morning sickness. This guy says Good morning John. As disgusting as it sounds, that's a due to another thing. Back in the 80s in the service I was in the Philippines in Thailand and it was a well known thing. Didn't matter what you needed. If you had a couple bucks from 8 years old to 80 years old, it was available to you. I don't know anything about anybody eight, but I did try out the 80 year olds. He said, I'll tell you this, their nipples look like your pinky finger, as in caterpillars or worms depending on the color of course of their skin. It must have been just pulled on and licked and sucked for 72 years. So maybe Toledo could go there for us in a Couple weeks and get a picture of one of those elongated curly purples. It's a purple pinky finger. And that's where Toledo's gonna go at the end of this week. He can't wait to fly back there. And I find that hysterical. And there's a great part of that is because there's a story out now where they, they're wrangling up all the rogue monkeys in one of the cities in Thailand. The mock macaques. They're starting to. They're driving everybody crazy.

[Host 7]

Drinking. They send.

[Host 5]

Oh yeah, they'll steal food and everything else. So they have this problem there where they're. The Thai monkeys are being arrested. And it's a huge problem because don't.

[Host 7]

They hang out a lot like in the temple area too where the people go? Tourist areas?

[Host 5]

Well, they're everywhere. Yeah, that's the picture they show in this one like weird penis shaped temple.

[Host 7]

Yeah.

[Host 5]

And it's mostly monkeys. There's hardly any people. And now so they're like losing money because the monkeys have taken over. So they're doing a big. And they're gang like the place you're supporting by giving them money is gonna do a huge monkey slaughter this week. So right before your ARR.

[Host 8]

The Chiang Mai, that's one of the places we went to last time. We're not going this time.

[Host 5]

Lop buri.

[Host 8]

Oh no, we're not there.

[Host 5]

You're not going to lop buri.

[Host 8]

And when we were in Bangkok, we didn't see, we didn't see a lot of monkeys. The only time we really saw monkeys when we were on the beach in Krabi and they were everywhere in the trees.

[Host 5]

They're going to round up 2,500 monkeys that hang around this temple. Think about that. Think if they were 25, just. We can't do it because we can't really picture macaque monkeys easily. So I'll do it with this picture. 2500 cats at the Heard Museum. I mean the smell. First of all, nobody's thinking of that.

[Host 8]

Put it at the Grand Canyon. 2,500 monkeys at the Grand Canyon.

[Host 1]

But that's like Mesa Amphitheater's attendance.

[Host 5]

It's not like people go there, just.

[Host 7]

Put them over there in the temple.

[Host 5]

It's nothing like the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon can house 2,500 monkeys. Applebee's cannot. And that's where they're got these things. This is a small old temple from thousands of years ago when people were all 2ft tall, about the size of these macaque monkeys. And they. So they didn't build big things. It's not a 2500. Can you imagine the smell of 2500 monkeys running around with tourists everywhere? And everybody thinks that's cute. They're gonna. Well, and that's the thing. They're not gonna like put them in a shelter. And this is gonna be a big. Toledo's gonna eat a lot of monkey meat next week.

[Host 6]

Thinking, oh, American hamburger.

[Host 5]

No. Yeah, McDonald's the reason. That's the guy's name, the director of general department. Oh you.

[Host 6]

Come on, McDonald. We have our new arrival. McD.

[Host 5]

What is that?

[Host 6]

Oh, a half a hot, half cold Monkey.

[Host 5]

But it's 2500 and they're getting rid of them all. And a woman's knee was dislocated because she got kicked in the back by one of the monkeys that wanted her food like left up and kicked. So they started getting like, hey, this. They're like Gilbert goons, only tough. So it says, I don't want a.

[Host 6]

Human to have to hurt monkey and I don't want monkey here to hurt a human.

[Host 5]

I have to get rid of monkeys. So no more lopburi monkeys for Toledo on his big trip next week. Congratulations to rich, but enjoy that delicious new flavor of. Is this beef? Sure, why not?

[Host 6]

Yeah, beef. Okay.

[Host 5]

It's other white meat. That's not right. I'm gonna have some of this though.

[Host 6]

You want a ketchup for your beef sandwich?

[Host 7]

Tender.

[Host 5]

Tender like little monkey itself. Say, what happened to all the monkeys? Where are they gonna put them? And this story is like, isn't that crazy? It's endangering. Or they're just gonna slaughter 2500 monkeys. Picture 2500 cats anywhere. Anywhere. That's.

[Host 7]

That's so many farm cats.

[Host 5]

And it's not a big space. It's not a huge footprint of space. Our parking lot is probably about the 2,500 cats at work. We would not be allowed to go in anymore. But this, this place has to round them up. Good luck.

[Host 7]

Well, some of our parks like what they did in Wyoming. Let's just bring some black wolves back.

[Host 5]

Right? Well, they tried to. Yeah, Brady, glad you said wolves. Man, that was like in some hard hitting pipe carrying black wolves.

[Host 7]

Let's bring a couple of leopards back to the temple area.

[Host 5]

I wonder if they're going to. Well, yeah, that's a good idea in theory.

[Host 8]

So here's Bangkok.

[Host 5]

What hates this monkey? Well, panthers. Well, give me eight or nine of those. We'll get rid of these things. No. Lickety split.

[Host 8]

And Lotburi is north of Bangkok in kind of the lower. Where the.

[Host 5]

Never going to care.

[Host 8]

Got to go there.

[Host 5]

Doesn't matter.

[Host 8]

And then where the soccer kids were is way up here.

[Host 5]

That's up there. Yeah. The fun part is that they're gonna do that panther thing Brady talked about, like. Yeah, we, we got rid of those monkeys, sir. We have a bit of a problem though. The panthers are procreating. We've got a huge panther problem by the temple.

[Host 7]

They seem to love tourists better than the monkeys.

[Host 5]

What hates a panther. Afraid we have to go with elephants on this one, sir. All right, let's get them out there. Okay. Elephants start to kill the panthers. So the elephants are. They're multiplying. We should have time to kill all those. They're huge. So this is not a good problem. But I can't, I can't imagine a country where that is allowed for a little bit and then gets to the point of over 2,000 before they're like, we got to do something. Because it's tourists that think it's cute.

[Host 8]

Well, it's a tourist problem.

[Host 5]

You think, oh, that's a story. There's the.

[Host 7]

I forgot like to see the temple, but the silverback is blocking the entrance.

[Host 5]

Yeah, this girl is standing over this crap. What eats panther.

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[Host 1]

Gorillas, rock, paper, scissors or what?

[Host 6]

Hyenas.

[Host 5]

Hyenas. I'm just trying to do the. The old lady that swallowed a fly.

[Host 7]

I'll take the hate anything that is going after their food.

[Host 5]

Okay, so hyen eats panther, then we bring in what to kill. The hyena is a lion.

[Host 7]

Lion.

[Host 5]

And then you're done.

[Host 1]

So what covers panther and what smashes?

[Host 5]

I mean, you know, this is it. So if you're doing the old lady that swallowed a fly technique to get rid of the monkeys, eventually you're going to have a room full of lions, and then you're done. You're done. That's how it works. But it's. I watched. I watched that beach House hunter show sometimes, and they go to those international places. And I remember one. I forget where. The Costa Rica or something. I don't remember it was. But one of the. One of the draws to the restaurant, and this just is making lemonade out of lemons to me, is that while you're eating, occasionally a monkey will steal all your food. And everybody laughed, and I'm like, no, that's a rat problem that they just made a tourist attraction. Because if any other animal comes up and starts to take my food off of my plate, I ain't laughing.

[Host 6]

But everybody's like, oh, he took my mango. He took it.

[Host 5]

And he just eats it at the table and looks at you like, want to do something about this? There's more where this came from. And then, you know, when that monkey starts eating, the other one starts, look at that monkey problem. Solid. Just pulled up a picture. Oh, that smells. The photo stinks. Look at all of them. Is that one dressed up?

[Host 8]

No, they're wood monkeys.

[Host 5]

Oh, they make wood ones, too.

[Host 7]

One of the.

[Host 8]

One of the temples, they honor the.

[Host 5]

Monkeys, and then now they got to slaughter them. Now they've honored them so much, now they have to slaughter them. The monkeys sacrifice? Yeah. Anywhere in the world like that. We as tourists walk them. They think that's really bigotry at work.

[Host 6]

They can't control the wild animals, so they eat the food from us.

[Host 7]

That's their people.

[Host 6]

They struggle with that. The wild animals in them are both fighting for the same mango.

[Host 5]

But anywhere I go, a monkey takes my. I'm punching that thing as hard as I can. That's if a rat crawled up on your table in New York City and there's as many rats as there are monkeys in Lumpuri or whatever the hell you're talking about. It's not cute in New York when rats crawl on the table and eat your food. But that's the same thing as these monkeys. And then we're taking pictures with them. They have a rat problem. It's just because monkeys are Kind of cute, like little baby kids.

[Host 8]

There's the official word.

[Host 5]

They plan to enclose 2,500 monkeys. And what that means is turn 2500 monkeys inside out.

[Host 8]

We're gonna put them in a chamber.

[Host 5]

What are you gonna do? We're probably enclosing.

[Host 6]

We enclose them. Very easy. Very easy to do. Keep all 2500 monkeys in enclosure. We'll do that. We got a place for them.

[Host 5]

Don't worry. Are they gonna be alive when you enclose them? Oh, semantics.

[Host 6]

I see, Mr. Inquisitive.

[Host 5]

No, they're not gonna be alive.

[Host 6]

Gonna put up a big pile of dead monkeys. Gotta open up temple.

[Host 7]

Then a year later, they got 2,500 inside and 2,500 outside.

[Host 6]

Now we got 2,500 monkey enclosure space.

[Host 5]

There's over 8,000 monkeys in it. Now we got a problem.

[Host 7]

Then there's the monkey skyscraper.

[Host 5]

Oh, you got a few go. They keep making.

[Host 7]

Stacking them up.

[Host 6]

So monkeys are now about to touch the moon. We made a. We have a huge problem in. Go all the way to sky.

[Host 5]

Yeah. This is a monkey tower.

[Host 6]

And we make that a tourist attraction. Monkey tower.

[Host 5]

Just keep building a fence around it. They're gonna kill 2500 monkeys. But, yeah, anything. I just don't understand that. Aruba. I remember they're sitting at this resort and they're making. There's a restaurant.

[Host 6]

And they're like, I just love it here. It's just so much fun.

[Host 5]

There's a tree right next to the table.

[Host 6]

So which house do we want?

[Host 5]

A bungalow. Bungalow.

[Host 6]

A beachfront fixer upper.

[Host 5]

And they have the three names of the things and they're rattling them off.

[Host 6]

That had a nice bathroom, but I didn't really like the answer. That one's gonna take a lot of work.

[Host 5]

And out of this tree, this thing just leaps on their food, just starts crushing their food and sitting there. And they're like, oh. I'm like, where else in the world does a wild beast jump on your table? Eat your food and you think it's cute, we choose one.

[Host 8]

Ready for another angle answer?

[Host 6]

We're gonna take house. But can you believe it? That monkey just ate my entire eggplate. Oh, my God. I love it here. I love it.

[Host 7]

Three months later, they're just miserable.

[Host 5]

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, they hate it there. Many monkeys are sitting there banging on the windows because you gave it food once and then now cut to New York City and you're at a nice Italian restaurant. I just love it here. What place are we going to take the 600 square foot apartment for $10 million a week or. And then a rat jumps on and just steals your. You're gonna lose it. So Toledo. Enjoy that when you're out there taking pictures with monkeys crawling all over you.

[Host 8]

Are you ready for this? To add another level to the story. So the 2500 monkeys have been designated urban monkeys.

[Host 5]

Yeah.

[Host 8]

Because they're no longer wild.

[Host 5]

Yeah. They can't go. They can't go back into the woods or jungles. They can't go back and they can't. Yeah, you can't do it. You gotta, you gotta enclose them 2500 at a time. You got a 2500 at a time. So it's a. It's a problem. You're gonna. You're gonna see, it's not gonna be fun for you. But they're gonna kill a bunch.

[Host 8]

We don't wanna. We don't want humans to have to hurt monkeys.

[Host 5]

Yeah.

[Host 8]

And I don't want to have monkeys hurt the humans.

[Host 5]

I read that already. I just did that.

[Host 6]

Who is he?

[Host 5]

He saw. He's on vacation mode already. Oops, I broke something. I forgot what that was.

[Host 8]

Did you say that they've only gotten 37 so far?

[Host 5]

Yeah. They're not going to catch 2500. They'll have fun over there and whatever the hell that place.

[Host 8]

We're not there.

[Host 5]

I know, but look, they, they're around your entire.

[Host 7]

So they're gonna try to net them.

[Host 5]

They're gonna kill them. They're gonna clear it.

[Host 7]

They're chasing them on horseback. It's gonna be throwing the nets.

[Host 5]

They're not netting anything. When the temple doors close, they're building, they're building the enclosures right now doing is putting a fence around the temple. Close it for two days.

[Host 6]

Oh, renovation pot. No mess.

[Host 5]

And they go and sweep up the monkeys. You know, Bondo the holes in the heads of the wooden ones and then let people back in. Look at it. They'll cull it down to a decent number of tourist monkeys, like 14, and just keep an eye on them.

[Host 7]

They just didn't like their setup.

[Host 5]

Right. Yeah.

[Host 7]

Some went back to the jungle.

[Host 5]

I just don't. That's a lot. 2500 dogs. And I love all dogs. That's. That's Guadalupe. Remember 2500 dogs in Guadalupe. If you had 2500, you couldn't leave. You couldn't walk out the house. You'd be dead in a second.

[Host 8]

We must have avoided all of them last time because the guy says. Yeah, 52 of the country's 77 provinces are reporting frequent monkey problems.

[Host 5]

Yeah, well, because it's a, it's a nation of Arizona's most powerful rock naval station. It's out of control now.

[Host 6]

98 Kupda big news.

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