Bands of wild monkeys are a major nuisance to residential areas and farmland in some parts of Karnataka. The intelligent simian intruders have typically been more difficult to scare away with conventional methods like scarecrows. The problem of wild monkeys becomes worse in winter as food becomes scarce in the forest as growth of fruits reduces, making the animals dependent on raiding farms.
But a village in Shivamogga district may just have found a way to keep the monkeys away. According to Deccan Herald, Srikanta Gowda, a farmer in Naluru village of Thirthalli taluk in Shivamogga, decided to paint his dog with tiger stripes using hair dye, which made the canine look like a tiger from a distance. Gowda claims the dye lasted on the animal for more than a month.
Gowda told mediapersons that he had remembered his father telling him that monkeys were scared of tigers. Gowda's inspiration for using the 'tiger approach' to deter monkeys came during a visit to Bhatkal in Uttara Kannada district four years ago, the Deccan Herald reported.
There, he saw a scarecrow that resembled a tiger. Gowda brought the scarecrow to his areca plantation and soon found that the monkeys had become scared of it. Gowda shifted the scarecrow to another area of his plantation and noticed similar effects. However, he soon realised that the paint on the scarecrow would fade. Thus he decided to try the same approach on his dog.
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Gowda was quoted by ANI as saying, "I now take Bulbul to the fields twice a day—in the morning and evening. I have seen them running away at the sight of the dog. The monkeys now refrain from entering my plantations," he said
His granddaughter, Amulya, told ANI that now their entire village has started emulating the 'tiger dog' trick. "Earlier, we used to have a lot of problems from monkeys, who used to destroy our crops. It was my father's idea to paint our dog to scare monkeys. In our village, everyone is appreciating and replicating my father's idea," said Amulya.