Human–monkey conflict is one of the main threats to agricultural farmers owing to the reason that it as monkeys destroy the growing crops such as fruits, vegetables, and grains. Chengalpet district of Tamil Nadu, India was purposefully selected for the study. Farmers who had at least one wildlife conflict incidence in their lifetime were selected for this study on adoption and perceived effectiveness of traditional practices to manage human-monkey conflict situations. The sixty participants were selected using the snow ball sampling and data were collected using semi structured interviews, complemented by free listing techniques, non-specific prompting, and reading back. A total number of seven identified traditional practices were adopted at various levels. Further, fire and smoke (83.3 %) were found to be most effective traditional method followed by sling shots (26.6 %) and fireworks/crackers (5.0 %). Although encouraging, these results require more widespread testing and demonstration to ensure their effectiveness at broader scales.