Prem Bahadur Damai is a watchman. He was hired by his fellow villagers in Bhadgaun in ward 6 of Sinja Rural Municipality to protect their cropfields. Having exhausted all options, the villagers decided to hire watchmen to protect their crops from marauding monkeys some five years ago.

The locals of Bhadgaun have been terrorised by monkeys that enter their village from the nearby Kaphalpata and Godekharu forests.

“The monkeys have made our life miserable. They destroy crops that are ready for harvest which has resulted in losses for all of us in the past five years,” said Damai. “I take this job very seriously and also as an opportunity to earn some money to support my family of 12.”

According to Damai, the villagers grow maize, beans, millet, and buckwheat, among other seasonal crops. “The monkeys seem to be attracted to these crops the most. As soon as the crops are ready for harvest, the monkeys storm the fields.”

A village meeting held on July 22, appointed the 34-year-old as the new watchman for the next six months. The villagers will look for a new watchman once Damai’s tenure is over. The watchman receives a salary of Rs16,500 per month.

There are 165 households in Bhadgaun and every household contributes Rs100 monthly to pay the watchman.

Before hiring watchmen, who could guard the fields for 24 hours, the villagers tried other methods. Chakra Bahadur Rawat, a local of Bhadgaun, says they installed scarecrows, lit fires, made loud noises and even kept watch at night to chase the monkeys away from the fields, but the monkeys kept returning to destroy crops.

“In the past five years, we have tried everything. Nothing works,” said Rawat. “That’s why we had to hire watchmen to keep away the monkeys.”

“Since there are many unemployed youths in the village, there is no trouble hiring a watchman. This way the unemployed youths get to earn some money too,” said Rawat.

He said that the monkeys usually come in troops and wreak havoc in the fields. “They uproot the crops and destroy everything in their path,” he said.

The watchman’s job is not only to keep monkeys away from the fields, but also to keep an eye out on other wild animals.

There are four villages in ward 6 of the rural municipality, out of which two villages—Bhadgaun and Jodu—are the most exposed to monkey attacks since they are located near forests.

Birkhalal Nepali, another local man, said that although they have time and again requested the rural municipality to help them resolve the monkey problems, they haven’t received any help.

“We asked them to help us save our fields from monkeys, but there has been no answer,” said Birkhalal.

Like Bhadgaun, the locals of Jodu have also been hiring watchmen at intervals of six months for the past two years to protect their crops from monkeys.

Lal Bahadur Budha, chairman of ward 6 of the rural municipality, said that the local unit does not have resources to send help to every village in the rural municipality and that the villagers must find their own solutions.

“We have not been able to provide any additional help to the villagers of Jodu and Bhadgaun, but the requests of the locals have not gone unheard. We have not planned anything currently to solve the monkey problem, but in the next fiscal year we will try to allocate a budget to solve this problem,” said Budha.