For thousands of years the villagers of the quaint Thai town of Phetchaburi have hung caged songbirds outside their back doors to keep them smiling while using their outside toilets and to ward off evil spirits.
However, in recent years the fox population has grown dramatically, lured down from the forests by the heady aromas of spicy shrimp soup and fried noodles.
Finding the restaurant waste bins firmly locked, the creatures have turned to easier pickings, plucking the brightly coloured songbirds from their cages.
But now local bamboo merchant Nanthapob Sriwarunyu has come up with a novel solution: hanging the birds on top of 30 foot poles.
Everyone appears pleased with the outcome, from the owners to the young lads who shin up the poles each night to feed the birds, in return for a bowl of spicy cockroach fritters.
“Business so good,” Mr Sriwarunyu told us. “Now everyone want pole from Mr Sriwarunyu! I go on luxury big holiday Milton Keynes!”