A hungry monkey caught stealing food from a family's kitchen gave park officers a hard time - running around for two hours as they tried to catch it.

The monkey sparked chaos when it sneaked in a house and rummaged through kitchen cupboards in Chonburi, eastern Thailand.

National park officers came to the area after receiving reports about rampaging wild primate. The monkey ran away across the village and scampered over rooftops but faced a dead end, where it was corned by the officers.

Staff then shot a tranquilliser at the monkey to knock him out. The operation took more than two hours before they were able to catch the creature and release it back to the jungle.

The house owner said she was worried that her neighbours' food could also have been stolen by the monkey.

She said: "I went into my kitchen and saw the monkey, who was startled and ran away from me.

"I didn't worry about the monkey taking my food but I worried about the other houses, so I called the National Park to tell them what had happened.''