Ever since the news came out, social media has been on fire, utterly enraged at the culling.

So, what is this “invasive alien species” all about? Apparently, in this Takagoyama Nature Zoo, one-third of the monkeys were found to have been crossbred with the rhesus macaque, a native to India and China, a species that is banned in Japan. Hence, alien. 

The zoo housed 164 simians that it believed were all pure Japanese macaques. But some of the snow monkeys allegedly escaped the facility and bred with the wild monkeys outside.

Hence, the monkeys had “to be killed to protect the indigenous environment,” an official told the Japan Times. The zoo apparently also organised a memorial service for the dead monkeys to “appease their souls,” near a Buddhist temple.

Netizens have called it a harsh response and some others have argued at why they couldn’t have just sent the monkeys out of the country. Why did they have to kill them?

The ministry officials from the Office for Alien Species Management, however, called the culling “unavoidable.” “Keeping a government-designated invasive alien species is unlawful, if one cannot look after them in an absolutely secure facility in which an animal can never escape from,” the official told the Japan Times.

The question remains, is an act like this justified?