Bitter Lesson for Thieving Monkeys

A gang of cheeky monkeys at London Zoo are being trained to turn their backs on their criminal ways.

As the sunny weather finally arrives in London, the zoo's Bolivian squirrel monkeys have taken to pinching the sunglasses right off the heads of visitors.

[Kate Sanders, Zoo Keeper]:
"At the moment the squirrel monkeys are getting a bit cheeky and they're starting to steal some sunglasses from visitors. They like to see the reflection in the lenses and they find that fascinating sometimes and they're just a bit cheeky really, especially the young ones. We've got five babies who are about a year old and they're the cheekiest and they love the glasses the most."

Zoo staff are putting deterrents in place to try and re-educate the young delinquents.

[Kate Sanders, Zoo Keeper]:
"Got a bit of a plan. We're going to spray the glasses with something called bitter apple. It's a spray which tastes really bitter and they don't like it. So we spray that and we're going to give them the glasses and hopefully they will hate the taste and go ‘Ooh we don't want to get any glasses,’ close glasses, and stop doing it."

This is not the first time the zoo has had to discourage the monkeys from theft. They encountered a similar problem with mobile phones several years ago.