In India, macaques are often victims of human cruelty. Their population is huge and crops are suffering, so the monkeys are no longer treated as pests. This orphaned cub was doomed – but help came when it was needed.
A few months ago, Indian photographer Prakash Badal was traveling on business in the state of Himachal Pradesh and witnessed an unusual scene.
He noticed a stray dog on the side of the road with a small macaque monkey crawling on top of it – the cub looked like it was no more than 10 days old.
The photographer learned from the locals that the mother monkey was poisoned to save her crop. This often happens in India, where the large macaque population is a major agricultural problem.
The cub was doomed – without its mother’s milk and protection, it would surely have died. But a stray female came to her rescue, preparing to soon give birth to cubs of her own.
Now the unusual pair lives together. The dog gets food to share with the puppy, they sleep, play and roam the streets together. According to Prakash, such a relationship between monkeys and dogs is rare – conflicts rather than friendships occur among these animals. But it seems that the instinct of the expectant mother did not allow to pass by the orphaned baby, even if it is a different species.
It is not known how the family relationship will develop when the puppies arrive, but for now there is no creature that the little macaque prefers more than this dog to which he owes his life.
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