A monkey problem in India has left some farmers so desperate that they have taken to dressing up as bears to stop the lawless critters from ransacking their crops and homes.
“Monkeys cause a menace and eat potatoes and strawberries from our fields. There must be more than 100 monkeys here. This happens every day. Monkeys run away after seeing us like this,” a farmer named Dharambir told ANI. “There should be some solution to this. Two or three of us are doing this.”
Previous methods of trying to frighten the monkeys away, such as placing scarecrows, pounding drums and pans, and chasing after them with brooms, were ineffective.
Manoj Kumar, a local forest ranger, acknowledged the problem and promised that the forest department will try to catch and relocate the animals.
“I do not have complete information regarding this. But I have come to know about this,” he said. “Monkeys run away, but this is not a permanent solution. If they run away from one place, they will reach another.”
“Concrete steps will have to be taken so that we can catch monkeys and release them in the jungle. Forest Department will make every effort to catch the monkeys, we will take action as per the instructions we receive.”
Monkeys break into homes and ransack refrigerators
Packs of monkeys in the region, sometimes as many as 100, have not only been wreaking havoc with crops, but sometimes they will even go right into people’s homes and loot their refrigerators.
“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,” Ratna Aggarwal, who lives in New Friends Colony in South Delhi, told The Times.
Authorities occasionally pay men to dress as langurs in order to mimic the larger, black-faced primates that frighten rhesus monkeys in parts of the city where ministers and MPs reside.
Wild monkeys aren’t the only problem farmers are facing
In addition to the wild packs of monkeys, farmers say they are also having to deal with stray cows eating their crops. Since most Indian states prohibit the slaughter of cows, after they stop producing, owners often release them, and the hungry animals wander onto other people’s farms for food.
“Sometimes there are so many cows, I can’t cope on my own and my wife and children have to join me,” said Munidev Tyagi, a farmer in Sahibpur village in Uttar Pradesh.