Guwahati: Indian agriculture is plagued by several problems even though it is the mainstay of its economy. One of the major problems faced by the farmers in protecting the crops from animals. We have seen farmers using scarecrows in such cases but in one of a kind incident, a farmer in Karnataka decided to paint his dog to resemble a tiger in a bid to scare the monkeys away from his field.
Farmers in the said village were facing a harrowing time as monkeys have been damaging their crops causing major distress to farmers of Nallur village of Shivamogga district. Sooner or later, the farmer, Srikanth Gowda came up with an idea. He decided to paint the fur of the pet Labrador named ‘Bulbul’ with black and blonde hair dye to make it resemble a tiger.
Interestingly, the plan worked out as the hair dye he used lasted for over a month. The farmer told media he used the best quality hair dye available in the market so that it does not harm its skin. He added that earlier he used to bring tiger soft toys to use them as scarecrow just as it was normally done by farmers. But it was not feasible in the long run, that too in a 53-acre plantation as the toys are expensive and used to get damaged in sun and rain.
As Gowda’s plan turned out successful, other farmers in the Malnad region have also started following the suit. In fact, another farmer from Kakkarasi village in Sorab taluk, JS Chidananda Gowda, tried playing the audio of dogs’ bark on a loudspeaker to scare away monkeys from his maize field and it worked out too.