Villagers in Sichuan province who lured wild monkeys down a mountain 13 years ago to attract tourists and alleviate poverty are now facing a dilemma.

They have to keep driving the monkeys away, because the hungry animals are destroying their crops.

In 2001, when He Youliang, now 57, became Party chief of Xianfeng, which forms part of Taiping township in Panzhihua city and lies at the juncture of Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, the village was impoverished and had only a dirt road.

"Somebody told me if we could attract monkeys to the village, investors with an eye for tourism might build a better road," He said.

In 2003, He and three villagers managed to find wild monkeys, but the animals ran away at the first sight of humans.

"We had to use corn to lure the monkeys to the village. The straight-line distance between the mountain area where the monkeys were found and our village is about 10 kilometers, but we spent 48 days attracting 73 monkeys to the village with corn," He said.

The next year, Zhou Zhenggui, a local businessman, set up an ecological tourism company in the village to show visitors the monkeys. A road nearly 20 kilometers long was built by the company to improve access.

He Fulin, a middle­aged villager, said, "The influx of tourists put cash in villagers' pockets, as they could sell their chicken and mutton. Each household bought a motorcycle and many villagers had cars.

"During the holidays for Spring Festival and National Day, more than 1,000 tourists flocked to the village, which was home to about 600 monkeys."

But in 2014, Zhou fell sick and died. His daughter tried to take over the company, but it ceased operations last year and could not pay villagers for feeding the monkeys corn.

He Youliang said the company owed as much as 110,000 yuan ($16,698) when it folded.

Without easy access to food, the monkeys began to eat crops in the fields and jumped on the roofs of houses, ripping up tiles.

In May, He Youliang and a group of villagers decided to drive the monkeys away by waving their hands and shouting to scare them.

"Each time, the monkeys would flee to a forest about 6 kilometers from the village on the mountain, but they would return next day. They have come back four times. We have to keep driving them away even though we love them," He said.