Jakartans protesting against Street Monkey Abuse (Topeng Monyet)

Jakarta Animal Aid activists protest the treatment of monkeys in ‘topeng monyet’ shows during a demonstration at the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle in Jakarta on Sunday. (Antara Photo)

Jakarta Animal Aid Network

New story in the news about Jakarta's monkey's.


SBS Dateline | Monkey Business

Posted by Administrator on 5/02/11 • Categorized as Jaan News,JAAN on Media

Source : SBS Dateline | Monkey Business

Link : http://www.sbs.com.au/dateline/story/transcript/id/601091/n/Monkey-Business

There is a common sight on the streets of Jakarta, trained monkeys who beg for food for their often impoverished handlers. It is a trade that seems harmless enough until you realise that the primates were not long ago swinging free in the jungles of Sumatra. David O’Shea has been examining the monkey business that has animal rights activists up in arms.



REPORTER: David O’Shea





It is a new day in the Indonesian capital and for millions of people struggling to eke out a living here, it is back to the daily grind. In the procession of human commuters this long-tailed macaque is off to work as well.

Born wild in the jungles of Sumatra, she is now forced to beg by the side of the road. Her handler, who makes her wear a doll’s mask, targets the areas with the worst traffic jams, and then waits for passing motorists to give money. There is little reward for effort in this business, so far only a mandarin.

REPORTER (Translation): No one’s giving you any money.

HANDLER (Translation): I have to be patient when it is like this.



REPORTER (Translation): Is it usually like this?

HANDLER (Translation): Yes it is but one or two people are sure to give me something.



Not far away, another long-tailed macaque is getting ready for work. To get there, Atun and her handlers have to dice with death on this chaotic streets. Atun is not a roadside beggar, but instead, works the neighbourhoods performing for children. She is reluctant to get started though, and needs to be egged on with a yank on the chain.



FEMKE DEN HAAS, JAKARTA ANIMAL AID NETWORK: In Indonesia, the attitude to animals in general is that you can do anything with them that you want, what life is there for us to use.



Femke Den Haas is from the Jakarta Animal Aid Network, she is campaigning to have the macaques listed as endangered and to stop them being used in this way.



FEMKE DEN HAAS: Macaques are just like great apes. – they are self-aware and they are highly intelligent and social. We do not have to look at the data on are they endangered or not. Just for ethical reasons, they should not be used on the street and going through so much cruelty. They should be living in the wild.



The whole dancing monkey’s performance is a wrong type of education. It is showing children that it is OK to exploit animals, to beat animals, to put them in chains and to use them as a toy. They are being used as a puppet. These monkeys are so frightened that they would do anything their owners ask them. You see their frustration – sometimes they are biting themselves. Children think that is funny – they say look they are biting themselves because they see them as puppets. They never get any education that this is a living being – they used to live in a family and has feelings or nothing.



Today’s performance finishes early because a link in the chain has broken and they do not want to risk her escaping.

REPORTER (Translation): Is there a danger that she will bite someone?

HANDLER (Translation): Yes, when she is not chained up she bites a lot of kids. It’s tiring work, we are out in the heat and we earn at most Rp 10,000. We go home and spend it and do the same again the next day. It’s like this every day.

They earn only a little over a dollar a day but the boys say they do not have other options. They are both orphans and this is the only life they know. They have been working with monkeys since they were just three years old.

HANDLER (Translation): We have no parents, so we earn money for food, now we are grown up we still work with the monkey. We earn Rp 1000 or 2000 so we can eat.



They tell me that Atun is like an old friend.



HANDLER (Translation): We played together as kids and now we are grown up, we have never changed monkeys, we always work with this one – she’s our mate, a real mate we are a family.



Not all monkeys there are as lucky as Atun. Femke Den Haas tells me that the Jakarta Animal Aid Network is desperate to stop street kids using monkeys to beg. And this means stopping those people who prey on the street children by renting them the trained monkeys as begging props.



FEMKE DEN HAAS: The children have to pay a certain amount of money each day to the owner of the monkey. The owner is just this guy that keeps monkeys in poor conditions next to his house in different locations in Jakarta and he brings them out to these poor street children and if the street children do not come back with enough money, or if there is a problem with the monkey, or if the monkey escapes or whatever, the street children have a problem.



Hartono is one of the men she is talking about. He has been in the monkey business for 14 years. He keeps them in cages next to his house and rents them out at a day rate. He even has baby monkeys, born here in a cage, although I’m told the survival rate is not good.



REPORTER (Translation): I hear they often die, why is that?

HARTONO (Translation): They get old and sick.



REPORTER (Translation): But young ones die too.

HARTONO (Translation): Sometimes it is stress or they are fed the wrong thing, sometimes they find leftover mosquito coils, they eat it and die.

Hartono buys monkeys which have already been trained by this man, Panjul, I joined him at the animal market in East Jakarta. He is on the hunt for new stock. He looks for monkeys which are about 3-4 months old, because he says they are the easiest to train.

PANJUL (Translation): This one is already too old, the one down there is an adult – it would be difficult.



For a country with so many endangered and protected animals, it is incredible that they are all for sale down these side streets. Panjul eventually finds a suitable monkey but because the vendor did not want to be filmed making the sale he only shows me once we have moved away. In four months’ time, once he has taught him a repertoire of tricks, this monkey will be worth five times what he just paid. So now it is off home to start the training.



The first thing the new monkey has to learn is to stand like a human, with his hands tied behind his back so he cannot climb the chain, he will be kept like this until his leg muscles develop.



PANJUL (Translation): We hand them up like this for a week to ten days so they can stand up and walk like humans – it is the first stage of training. When they are strong enough, I hang them up overnight. They are fine, they can cope.



Panjul starts them off like this for two hours and then gradually increases it to five and then 10 hours a day. At that point the chain will be so tight he will be standing on tiptoes.

REPORTER (Translation): Don’t their legs hurt when they are like that, monkeys are not used to standing like that, are they?

PANJUL (Translation): No, they are not used to it, they just get stiff, it doesn’t hurt.



He says he understands why people think it is cruel. Panjul has monkeys at various stages of training. This one has been learning the ropes for a month now, it will take another three or four months before it is ready to work.

PANJUL (Translation): I’ve been introducing him to different toys, but he is still stressed and crying out because he hasn’t been doing it for long.



He is currently learning to do a somersault and to salute, eventually he will be as competent as Panjul’s smartest monkeys. He can be easily distinguished by the boot polish that Panjul has painted on his head. He knows the whole routine and can do all the tricks, including the military commander pose, but best of all he is not frightened of the children. In short, for the man who rents him out for the day, he is a money-making machine.



REPORTER (Translation): Do some people complain “The poor thing belongs in the jungle.” What do you tell them?

MAN (Translation): I tell them it’s terrible in the jungle, here they are tamed.



REPORTER (Translation): Why is it terrible in the jungle?

MAN (Translation): They haven’t been trained.



The long-tailed macaque is not yet listed as an endangered species even though the Jakarta Animal Aid Network has lobbied for this. Femke Den Haas is so frustrated with the lack of progress she is about to broaden the campaign.



FEMKE DEN HAAS: We really wanted to solve this locally. We never wanted to set up a big campaign, but now we are – now we are at the point of saying – we have tried everything on a local level – it is all empty promises – nothing is changing – more and more monkeys are being used. We see baby monkeys, we see mothers with weaning babies on the streets. It is unacceptable and we do need international pressure to end this.



But for Atun’s controllers, this is just the way it is done.

REPORTER (Translation): Do some people get angry and say “poor monkey”.

HANDLER (Translation): Yes, sometimes when we perform people say “Be careful. Poor monkey. Don’t torture it.” But she is a performing monkey and it’s a tradition. This is how we do it.





MARK DAVIS: David O’Shea filming and reporting there. Go to our website to tell us your thoughts on that story, and any of tonight’s other reports. And there is a link to more information on the Jakarta animal aid network at sbs.com.au/dateline.

Reporter/Camera

DAVID O’SHEA



Producer

VICTORIA STROBL



Fixer

Kanthi Andayani



Editor

NICK O’BRIEN

MICAH MCGOWN

Translation/Subtitling

ROBYN FALLICK

Original Music composed by

VICKI HANSEN

1st May 2011



here.

Special Report: Cruelty Behind the Mask of Jakarta’s Monkey Circuses

It is a pitiful sight, but one that Jakarta residents are used to and that tourists encounter within days or even hours of arriving.

By the side of the road, a small, skinny monkey, sometimes fitted with a grotesque mask and garish costume, juggles or rides a toy bicycle or rocking horse, all the while tethered by a chain to a handler squatting in the shade a meter or two away, waiting for the occasional coin tossed from a car window.

In one South Jakarta spot, a nursing monkey is forced to perform, her infant clinging to her desperately while suckling, as motorists line up to enter the toll road. Every minute or two, her leash is yanked and she remembers that it’s time to change the act.

The sight of topeng monyet, or masked monkeys, is so familiar, and the long-tailed macaques trained to perform like this often seem so world-weary, that it is tempting to imagine that they have always been around.

But the monkey acts really only began in the 1980s as traveling shows to entertain poor kids in the kampungs. Only in recent years have monkeys been seen in the city center.

Since then their numbers have grown steadily, and as their visibility has increased, so too have concerns about the welfare of the monkeys.

For this special report, the Jakarta Globe looks behind the mask and investigates the hidden suffering and torture that the monkeys endure — suffering that becomes more and more entrenched with every Rp 1,000 note that passing drivers hand over.

Where It All Begins

The story behind the often light-hearted shows starts in the East Jakarta slum area of South Cipinang Besar, famously known as Kampung Monyet, or Monkey Village, where at least 150 macaques are kept in cramped wooden cages.

After having endured hours of agonizing “training,” the monkeys sit stuck in cages, waiting for their turn to be taken out to the street to perform. They live among the roughly 200 households in a shantytown built on disputed land behind the Prumpung toy market. The majority of residents in the area work as monkey handlers.

Cecep, one such resident, shows the Globe the grotesque way that a monkey that normally walks on four legs is taught to stand upright.

Behind a shanty on a riverbank filled with garbage, Cecep puts a metal ring around the neck of Toal, a male macaque with a broken arm from a previous training incident. Two ropes tether the ring to poles erected on either side of the monkey. Cecep also ties Toal’s arms behind his back while the monkey screeches in pain.

This “hanging the monkey” method, Cecep says, forces the animal to rely only on its feet to get better footing on the ground, strengthening the monkey’s leg muscles and giving it an erect, human-like posture.

“We usually hang the monkeys for half a day before we release them for a few hours to feed them and let them rest,” says Nanang, another handler.

“After that, we hang them again for a few hours until the day’s training is over and we put them back in their cages.

“But we have to hit them, too, sometimes.”

Cecep says some handlers let their monkeys hang all day without feeding them or giving them breaks, risking medical problems or even death.

The hanging training begins as soon as a monkey stops nursing, or when it is at least a year old. It takes a week to a month for a monkey to get through this basic training, the handlers say.

Cecep, who has been in the trade since 1999, says peranakan monkeys, those born to performing monkeys, have a better chance of surviving the training than monyet pasar, or those caught in the wild by poachers.

“The peranakan ones can take a week to train while the monyet pasar take at least a month,” he says. “Sometimes they don’t make it and they die.”

The peranakan monkeys are considered more hardy than the pasar monkeys because trainers can be sure they have finished nursing. Monyet pasar, on the other hand, might not have had the chance before they were snatched by poachers. As a result, they tend to have less strength and stamina.

Once the monkeys have passed the hanging training and can walk upright, the handlers train them to use various toys and props, such as a toy motorcycle, for their performance.

“We also train them to lift toy weights to check if they can really stand erect,” Cecep says. “If they can’t, the toy training period takes longer.

“We don’t teach them to use all the toys at the same time,” he adds. “Once the monkey knows what to do with a toy gun, for example, we start training it with another toy.”

Dying in Training

Cecep and Nanang both claim a success rate of 60 percent in getting monkeys to complete the two phases of training.

“The other 40 percent [of monkeys] end up dead,” Cecep says. “If they’re not physically strong enough, they die during the basic training, though some die later in the toy training phase.”

Cecep thinks of himself as being gentler with his animals than the other handlers.

“If I fail and one of my monkeys dies during training, I give it a proper burial,” he says.

“Many others just toss the monkey’s body into the river or a garbage dump.”

He adds that he has had two monkeys die on him during training. Then there are the non-lethal training accidents, like the broken arm he gave Toal.

Cecep demonstrates how he has trained another of his monkeys, Odon, to ride a small wooden motorcycle and salute a flag.

As Odon walks back and forth with the toy motorcycle, Cecep gives the command for it to perform by yanking on the chain attached to a collar around the monkey’s neck.

It’s “normal” to pull hard, he says, and there’s a certain way to do it without breaking the animal’s neck. “I don’t give a sudden jerk while the chain is lax,” he says.

“I pull the chain straight first and then I slowly yank it to signal to him to start. That way, it doesn’t hurt his neck and he doesn’t lose his balance.”

Cecep and the other handlers train their monkeys to play with the props or perform other stunts in whatever free space they can find. Often this means the training occurs in the narrow alleyways of their neighborhood, among residents milling about and stacks of monkey cages.

Some of the smaller cages house two or more monkeys each, while the larger ones cram up to 15 monkeys together.

One of the caged animals is a female macaque named Atun. She is carrying a nursing infant on her neck.

“Atun is probably eight years old and she has had three babies, but one of them died after it got sick from being bitten by another monkey,” says another handler, Dede Irfan Saputra, who has just returned from panhandling with another monkey and is undressing it before caging it.

Cecep says the bigger cages are owned by the local “monkey bosses” who rent out the primates to handlers for Rp 15,000 ($1.70) per monkey per day, with the basic props of a mask and a costume.

The monkey owners charge an additional Rp 20,000 to rent out extra props such as a toy bicycle or musical instrument.

Handlers like Cecep and Nanang can expect to take home Rp 50,000 to Rp 70,000 after several hours of daytime performance on the sides of some of Jakarta’s busiest roads.

“That’s the net amount I get after transportation and monkey rental,” Cecep says, adding that he can make a little more during weekends.

Most of the time, the macaques’ diet consists solely of plain white rice. During performances, however, their handlers give them pieces of fruit or snacks that passersby hand out.

Both Cecep and Nanang say a distressed monkey poses some level of danger to the humans around it.

“The monkey can be dangerous if it’s handled by an unfamiliar handler who doesn’t deal with it on a daily basis like we do,” Cecep says.

“Unlike us, the foreign handler won’t know if the monkey is stressed, hungry or tired,” he adds. “Sometimes the monkeys can get irritated when children make fun of them. If we understand the monkeys, they will understand us back.”

Ending the Cruelty?

Pramudya Harzani, a spokesman for animal rights and welfare group Jakarta Animal Aid Network, is campaigning to put an end to the cruelty.

Pramudya says JAAN is frequently contacted by animal lovers indignant about the way the monkeys are being exploited in what is essentially a panhandling scheme.

Members of the group have traced the monkeys and their handlers to Kampung Monyet and identified at least three major bosses who own several monkeys that they rent out.

“Those monkeys go through hell to be trained to perform,” Pramudya says.

“They’re even poached from their mothers while they’re very young. This is obviously against the five principles of animal welfare,” he adds.

These five principles are guidelines relating to freedom from thirst and hunger, freedom from pain and disease, freedom to live in a suitable environment, freedom to express normal behaviors and freedom from fear and distress.

“We are very concerned about this situation. This is not entertainment, this is cruelty to animals,” Pramudya says.

He says it is important that people stop giving money to the monkeys or their handlers because doing so only encourages the practice.

He adds that JAAN has tried to raise the issue with the government by pointing out that ignoring this situation could have an adverse effect on human health, given that monkeys are potential carriers of numerous infectious diseases.

The long-tail macaques are not categorized as a protected or endangered species in Indonesia, but Pramudya says this is no excuse to overlook the trade and leave it unregulated.

“Don’t wait for them to become endangered or to cause a bigger problem before regulating them,” he says.

source

More Topeng Monyet (Street Monkeys)

You can see topeng monyet on the streets in Jakarta, almost everyday begging for some money for their owners. Their life is but a pale significance of what they once where. I feel sorry for them, but do not know what I can do to help them.

Once they were part of Javanese culture, traveling around neighbourhoods performing tricks and shows for admiring children. Now they are stuck on a chain, at a smoky, polluted and hot traffic intersection.

Topeng monyet or performing street monkey's

You can see topeng monyet I feel sorry for them, but do not know what I can do to help them.

Once they were part of Indonesian culture, traveling around neighbourhoods performing tricks and shows for laughing children. Now they are stuck on the end of a chain, at a smoky, polluted and hot traffic intersection.

topeng monyet or performing street monkeys

I saw this article in the Jakarta post today, made me sad. But that's life.


Much-abused macaques may soon face extinction

Anissa S. Febrina , The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Tue, 04/21/2009 2:26 PM | Lifestyle

They entertain children, feed those with unusual appetites and sacrifice their freedom for the sake of science.

Humans are indebted to the long-tailed macaques, possibly familiar to locals as street entertainment topeng monyet, who are now endangered due to unmonitored exploitation.

A recent investigation by UK-based pro-animal group, British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV), has raised concerns of the exploitation of Macaca fascicularis, as exports of the animal have not been in line with international trade regulations.

The BUAV report stated while the long-tailed macaques were not necessarily threatened with extinction, they could soon be at risk unless their export was more strictly regulated.

The trade of the animal is regulated by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES), which Indonesia ratified in 1978.

CITES bans the international trade of wild-caught macaques and only allows those that have been captive-bred to be sold.

BUAV accused Indonesia of exporting wild-caught macaques under the guise of captive breeding.

The export of macaques is lucrative and the country has exported a total of 24,811 macaques worldwide between 1997 and 2006.

Indonesia is the United States' third largest supplier, after the Philippines and Mauritius.

Most animals end up in laboratories, as they are among the five species of Macaca suitable for biomedical research test subjects.

Between 3,000 and 4,000 long-tailed macaques are exported from Indonesia every year. According to data obtained from CITES, 6,078 long-tailed macaques were exported in 2005 and 2006 alone.

The country exported 4,007 captive-bred long-tailed macaques last year, data from the Forestry Ministry's directorate of biodiversity conservation revealed.

But are the so-called captive-bred macaques actually bred?

Captive breeding in Indonesia can involve setting free wild-caught long-tailed macaques on remote islands. One of the most famous is Tinjil Island in Banten, where the captive breeding of long-tailed macaques started in 1988, with 520 animals brought to the island from the wild. BUAV argued such breeding could not be categorized as captive breeding as the monkeys roam free and are intertwined in a living ecosystem.

The Forestry Ministry's director general for forest protection and nature conservation, Darori said it was debatable whether captive breeding systems, such as that on Tinjil Island, violated CITES regulations.

Setting debates aside, the increasing quota for captured monkeys is also concerning environmentalists.

NGO ProFauna reported the number of captured long-tailed macaques had continuously increased from 2,000 in 2006 to 4,100 in 2007 and 5,100 in 2008.

According to the Schmutzer Primate Center, there was no valid data on the current population of long-tailed macaques.

Meanwhile, the BUAV investigation revealed population surveys of the monkeys by the Indonesian Institute of Science (LIPI) were conducted by third parties and based on invalid extrapolation methods. The quota for captured monkeys is based on these population surveys.

Such continuously increasing quotas also raised concerns of captive breeding centers becoming a pool for wild-caught macaques later on sold as bred ones.

"Captive breeding centers in Indonesia have always been a failure as they always need a new supply of wild-caught macaques," ProFauna activist Asep R. Purnama said.

In 2008 alone, the Forestry Ministry allocated 2,000 wild-caught macaques to captive breeding centers. The monkeys were caught in North Sumatra, Riau, Jambi, Bali and Central Kalimantan.

Without detailed and accurate measures of macaques' population and a strict monitoring on captive breeding centers, Indonesia could risk completely eradicating the species, Asep added.

For pro-animal activists, it was not only the numbers that mattered, but also how the animals would be treated once their fate as an internationally traded species was decided.

Macaques are subjected to mental and physical abuse, particularly during capture and during transportation between breeding centers.

Hunters usually capture infant macaques after chasing away their mothers with rifle shots.

Arriving safe and uninjured in the breeding centers does not guarantee a comfortable life for the macaques. They are often cramped in cages to be later on transported in small wooden crates. If they are meant for export, they will be kept in the cages for a long time.

For those destined to be test subjects in research laboratories, the suffering continues as medicines are tested on them. Sometimes the primates are intentionally hurt during behavioral observations.

As they are the closest known primates to humans, they are used extensively in medical experiments, particularly those connected with neuroscience.

Since the human race is obviously able to benefit from nature, we should bear in mind that making the most of nature should not involve exploiting it.