Villagers in India had to dress up as bears so they could scare off the over 2,000 wild monkeys that ruled their village.

In the Sikandarpur Village in Uttar Pradesh, India, 2 villagers decided to wear bear costumers with hopes of scaring off the monkeys.

The villagers pulled up the bizarre stunt after the forest department ignored their pleas for help.

Ram Lalit Verma, the head of the Sikandarpur Village, said, “We have now started taking turns in wearing the bear costume and roaming around the village.”

Lalit added, “It was a relative who had told me about the idea and it is actually working.”

Residents of the Sikandarpur Village chipped in so the men could buy 3 costumes from a make-up artist, which cost them around 1,700 Rupees each.

The men were also caught on cam.

Facing monkey menace, villagers get ‘under the skin’ rather than ‘bear’ it https://t.co/58YZz7xusL

— TOI Bareilly (@TOIBareilly) January 28, 2020

According to reports, the village said the trick has helped them have a drastic drop in the monkey attacks that they face.

The head of the village said that there had been 150 monkey attacks, which targeted children, in the past couple of months.

MN Singh, a forest officer, defended why they failed to take action against the animals.

Singh said the lack of funds prevented them from capturing the monkeys.

He explained, “Catching a monkey would cost nearly 600 Indian Rupees ($8.41) and last time we got funds was in 2018 when we had called a rescue team from Mathura.”

Singh said the villagers were allowed to catch the monkeys and release them in a different area of the state.

If the forest department finds the bear trick worked, they are going to suggest it to villages that are facing the same problem.