Hapless monkey hunters miss crazed apes and shoot woman with tranquilliser dart

dailystar.co.uk:

monkey menace.But, in an embarrassing and potentially dangerous mishap, one of the hunters accidentally pulled the trigger of his tranquilliser gun while interviewing a witness – knocking her out for over an hour.The hunter had been dispatched to Fuji City, in Shizuoka Prefecture, in response to complaints that a macaque had been seen prowling around Fujikawa railway station.READ MORE: Mum fed pet monkey kebabs and offered it cocaine before flushing it down the toiletThe hunter, along with three other local council employees, tried to interview a woman who had seen the monkey in hope of working out where it had gone.But while they were talking, the hunter’s finger slipped onto the gun’s trigger, sending a six-inch dart loaded with powerful sedative straight into the witness’s left arm.The woman lost consciousness almost instantly, and had to be rushed to hospital to recover.The sedative, which was strong enough to subdue a two-stone monkey, knocked the woman out for a full hour, and left her groggy and unable to speak for a further hour.It later emerged that the hunters had been taping up their weapons to prevent air leaks, and it was during this procedure that the man inadvertently pulled the trigger.The Fuji City government has issued an apology to the woman saying that a full investigation will take place, and action taken to prevent accidental weapons discharges from happening again.It’s not clear why Japan’s monkeys have suddenly become more aggressive.In Yamaguchi City, in the west of the country, more than 60 people have been attacked by macaques in the past few months.“Initially, only children and women were attacked,” a city official told the Guardian. “But recently, elderly people and adult men have been.