The pervasive food insecurity, which many Gambian households currently grapple with, has not also spared domesticated and wild animals in some neighbourhoods as monkeys get ever closer to the kitchen and cats ditching owners.
Housewives around the Bijilo Monkey Park have been complaining of monkey intrusions into the kitchens.
The successive failed tourist seasons have been blamed, among other factors, for the brazen monkey assaults on kitchens around that part of Bijilo.
Depleted forests and hotel kitchens as well as absence of tourists ready to feed monkeys mean monkeys had to find food outside the protected area.
“These monkeys are becoming invasive,” a housewife in the area, Kaddy Fattty, told JollofNews.
“You need to tend to your pots else risk a monkey or monkeys make you regret why you left the utensils untended,” Musu Kujabi also of the area said.
Meanwhile, cats and dogs have also been adversely affected by the soaring fish and meat prices, shattering cat communities as there were little or no leftovers for the domestic animals in many areas of the country.
Consequently, they had to migrate to other areas they thought the fish and meat bones are redder, many had thought.
“I did not set my eyes on the family cat for one year now. It used to come and go but it no longer pop around for even a visit,” Musa Correa told JollofNews as we investigate the food crisis among some of the country’s animals.
“I cannot blame it because even we as humans in the house were experiencing serious hunger,” he admitted.
Correa believed the cat must have gone to relatively wealthier areas in search of redder and meaty bones.
Indeed, facts gathered by JollofNews have indicated that cats have been abandoning their owners in their Church mouse situations, leaving to seek better nutrition elsewhere.
“It’s months now that I haven’t seen my cat. I’m not sure whether it is alive or not. Since I lost my job at the hotel at the peak of the pandemic, I realized that my cat would leave one day because it has always shown signs that it was unhappy as I was no longer bringing it meat from the hotel,” Pa Jobe jokingly told JollofNews.
“I heard Mandela is now in Brusubi,” Saihou Faye of Bakoteh said of his cat.
“Let it go to the timberland (Brusubi) because there is no meat or bone for him here at the dryland(Bakoteh),” he added sarcastically.
Meanwhile, the pervasive household food insecurity have seen less food materials find their way to the landfills, putting the domestic animals in an even more awkward situation.
