Welcome to Learning English, a daily 30-minute program from the Voice of America.

I'm Katie Weaver.

And I'm Mario Ritter Jr.

This program is designed for English learners, so we speak a little slower and we use

words and phrases especially written for people learning English.

Coming up on the show, Andrew Smith has an update on some monkeys in a Thai town.

We also hear from John Russell about the art of sake brewing.

Brian Lynn presents the technology report, and we close the show with the L.E. Lesson of the Day. But now, here is

Andrew Smith. People will no longer have to fight with monkeys in the historic Thai city of Lop Boree.

That is because of new efforts to keep the animals from reproducing and to limit their movements.

Before public health measures to control COVID-19 closed businesses in Lopburi, about 3,000 long-tailed macaques

lived there.

The people of the city fed them and even had a yearly party for them. Tourists came to the city north of Bangkok to see

the macaques in what was known as Monkey City. The macaques are believed to bring good luck.

They live in the nearby forests and have long been a part of the city's history.

But after Lopburi came out of the pandemic lockdown in the middle of 2022,

people found that the monkeys had become unruly without people feeding them.

Groups of macaques had taken over buildings. They stole food and caused accidents by walking in the

streets.

Groups of the monkeys also fought each other, shocking local people.

Some of the townspeople put up cages around their homes to keep the monkeys out.

Wysarut Sonyam is a local researcher with the non-governmental organization, Ecoexist Society.

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