The number of municipalities exterminating monkeys reached about 500 in fiscal 1999, after the government revised a law to let prefectures eradicate harmful animals, a survey released Sunday shows.

The survey by All Life In a Viable Environment found that 497 municipalities in 41 prefectures disposed of 10,161 monkeys. In Nagano Prefecture, 43 municipalities did so, followed by 31 in Mie Prefecture and 28 in Gifu Prefecture. The survey was the first to reveal such figures on a municipal level. Annual Environment Ministry statistics show figures only on a prefectural level.

The Tokyo-based ALIVE sent questionnaires to 45 prefectures in August and inquiries to municipalities. No monkeys inhabit the two remaining prefectures, Hokkaido and Okinawa.

The survey found that most municipalities asked hunters' associations to shoot the monkeys. But some municipalities took what the Environment Ministry terms as "undesirable" measures to exterminate them.

Municipalities in Kyoto and Wakayama prefectures beat monkeys to death, while those in Fukushima and Aichi prefectures starved them.

Municipalities in five prefectures sold or gave monkeys to brokers and research institutes.

But those in three of the five prefectures did so without confirming that the recipients had permits from the prefectures to raise the primates, as stipulated in the revised law to protect birds and animals, the survey showed.

Fusako Nogami, head of ALIVE, said the group will soon send similar questionnaires to the municipalities in question to learn the details.

"Municipalities may end up seeing the frequent occurrence of illegal transactions of monkeys unless they dispose of them quickly and painlessly," she said.