Desperate farmers in India have begun to dress as bears and growl to try and scare off monkeys, who have been stealing their potatoes.
The men, in Sambhal district, Uttar Pradesh, had tried running after the monkeys with brooms, banging drums and pans and using scarecrows.
But these all proved unsuccessful and even wildlife officials could not resolve the attacks, where monkeys ate potatoes and strawberries while in some cases entering homes and raiding fridges.
The farmers eventually resorted to buying bear costumes, knowing their monkey enemies were terrified of the animals.
Faced with farmers dressed as bears, troops of monkeys ran and stayed away.
However the ‘monkey men’ tactic is not expected to be successful given it does not address the fact that many Indians feed the creatures and encourage them to return.
It has also been reported that deforestation by humans has negatively affected the areas in which monkeys had hunted for food.
Hindus feed them because Hanuman, the monkey god, is believed to bring good luck.
Farmers have begun to dress as bears in India to scare off potato-eating monkeys
The costumes came after farmers tried other methods, including chasing monkeys with brooms and banging drums to scare them off
Across northern Indian cities, monkeys have desperately hunted food, using various tactics to feed themselves.
Finding a monkey at home is not an abnormal event, with the creatures munching on whatever they can find.
Ratna Aggarwal, who lives in south Delhi, told The Times: ‘They smashed our water pipes, broke the water tank on the roof, and smashed our pot plants. When I waved a stick at them, they snarled back.’
In the Delhi areas home to high-status Indian ministers and MPs, men were previously hired to wear langur monkey costumes.
These larger monkeys with black faces scare off the smaller rhesus creatures who raid Indian pantries.
Until 2012 real langurs were unleashed to chase off their rhesus cousins but India began to enforce a long-dormant wildlife law that stopped the practice of keeping langurs captive.
Cows are also posing a problem for Indian farmers – combatting them is an issue because of the animal’s revered status in the country.
Slaughtering cows, believed to be sacred, is banned in most Indian states.
Cattle owners are unable therefore to sell their cows to slaughterhouses and often let them loose when they are no longer useful.
Loose cattle then encroach on other farmland to search for food.
Munidev Tyagi, a farmer in Sahibpur village in Uttar Pradesh, told The Times: ‘Sometimes there are so many cows, I can’t cope on my own and my wife and children have to join me.’
