Lop Buri, a city in northeastern Thailand, is home to thousands of monkeys.

The monkeys are believed to bring good luck and have become a tourist attraction.

In fact, one of Thailand's biggest festivals, the Monkey Festival, is held in Lop Buri during which a feast is offered to the monkeys. Tourism has also changed the behaviour of these monkeys as they now expect to receive food from humans.

As borders closed due to Covid-19 pandemic, the monkeys were described to have turned violent without the usual supply of food and snacks.

Footage of two troops of monkeys fighting on the street surfaced on social media recently.

Hundreds of monkeys fight

A Facebook user, Wisrut Suwanphak, shared on July 25 photos and videos of numerous monkeys engaged in a fight at Lop Buri.

The fight, which took place in the middle of a road, appears to involve two groups of monkeys:

According to local media, the cause of conflict is likely to be food.

Some curious monkeys were also sighted sitting at the top of the nearby buildings, watching the fight unfold as onlookers:

The fight seems to have halted traffic and caused a traffic jam.

Not the first time

In 2020, two gangs of monkeys were embroiled in a fight in Lop Buri.

Prior to this, the two gangs stuck to their own territories, however, insufficient food had driven them to encroach into each others' space.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, tourist arrivals dropped which resulted in a lack of food for the monkeys.

This is because monkeys had become dependant on human feeding, thus, the drop in tourist arrivals affected their food supply.

However, it is unclear if the two fights involve the same groups of monkeys.

View the original post here: