Primate pillagers face the wrath of the Monkey Buster grannies

A trio of feisty Japanese grannies is making monkey business their business.

Self-proclaimed Monkey Busters - Masako Ishimura (74), Tatsuko Kinoshita (68) and Miyuki Li (67) — have armed themselves with airguns to protect their area’s crops from a gang of pillaging primates, Newsweek reports.

The women from Hikariishi Town, in the Fukui Prefecture on the Sea of Japan coastline formed their group after attending a class run by their local branch of the Japan Agricultural Cooperative on how to repel monkey invaders.

Since about 2015 primates have been plundering local farms, damaging crops of onion, eggplant, soybean and potato. After scarecrows and animal netting proved to be ineffective deterrents, the grannies started the “Monkey Busters” group in May.

“There are many elderly people in the Miyama area, and the cultivation of fields is indispensable for health and vitality. It is necessary for the area to continue working together in the future,” Ishimura told a local newspaper.

As soon as a monkey sighting is reported, the Monkey Busters are summoned, and they will drop everything to rush to the scene with their airguns. They fire a warning shot in the direction of the monkeys and are often backed up by neighbours who use firecrackers to frighten away the primates, or chase after the monkeys with hoes, reported Japan Today.

As the grannies have driven out the monkey raiders, they’ve driven up their social media following, if Twitter is anything to go by!

Source: Newsweek, fukuishimbun.com, Huff Post, Twitter, Japan Today