Using bears to shoo away monkeys may seem to be an odd idea, but residents of the Sikandarpur village in India had no choice.
With over 2000 monkeys creating commotion and disturbing life in the village and the forest officials not helping, the villagers decided to solve the problem on their own.
Two of the residents, dressed up as bears, began moving around the village to scare away the monkeys.
Village head Ram Lalit Verma told local reporters: “We have now started taking turns in wearing the bear costume and roaming around the village. It was a relative who had told me about the idea and it’s actually working.”
The villagers pulled in money and bought three bear costumes from a makeup artist for Rs 1700 (around 20 Euros) each.
It has been a few days since the bear scare began and the number of monkey attacks has already come down. Earlier, about 150 children had been attacked by monkeys in the village that has a population of about 5200.
Forest officer Singh said: “The monkey population is increasing rapidly in the district. We are unable to do much because of a lack of funds. Catching a monkey costs nearly Rs 600 (7 euro) and we had called a rescue team from Mathura when we got funds in 2018.”
Singh said that he would soon visit Sikandarpur village and check if this bear trick is really working and would even suggest similar action in other villages.
Source: IANS
