Dancing monkeys to be rescued from cruel training centre
News
Jakarta Animal Aid Network, our partners in Indonesia, are embarking on a massive mission to rescue 30 macaque monkeys from the last monkey training hub in Cirebon. Thank you for your ongoing support of this rescue operation.
Image courtesy of Jakarta Animal Aid Network
With your support, the rescue mission will involve carefully rescuing and transferring the monkeys to Cikole, West Java, where they will be medically assessed, treated and go through a quarantine process. If suitable for release, they will then have a chance of a new life in protected, natural forests.
These macaque monkeys were likely poached from the wild as babies, to then be exploited for tourism in the “Dancing Monkeys” or “Topeng Monyet” trade in Indonesia. Poachers may have shot the protective mother monkeys before ripping these baby monkeys from their natural habitat.
Since their capture, these bewildered young monkeys have been subjected to one of the cruellest training regimes imaginable. Starved, hanged, beaten and chained by the neck, they have been forced to wear masks, dressed as dolls, and made to stand on two legs for hours.
They are trained to do dance steps, ride bicycles and perform tricks for shoppers and tourists on the streets. When they aren’t dancing, they are often kept in tiny single cages for prolonged periods of time.
Macaques are wild animals. They are not born to dance. Wild animals have a right to live where they belong: in the wild.
Our partners Jakarta Animal Aid Network (JAAN) and local authorities have made great progress in stamping out the dancing monkey trade across much of Indonesia over the last 15 years. We are proud to support them in shutting down this final venue of this practice.
Whilst Cirebon is the final dancing village, the Topeng Monyet practice itself is not yet illegal. JAAN’s ultimate aim is to ban the monkey dancing practice in Indonesia for good. We are supporting JAAN in their work with local authorities and charities to achieve this complete ban.
This cruel practice not only raises concerns about animal welfare, but it also poses a high risk of zoonotic diseases (diseases that can spread from animals to humans) such as tuberculosis and salmonella.
To ensure this is the last generation of monkeys exploited in this cruel trade, each monkey handler will be guided to find alternate livelihoods that don’t involve harming animals.
Together, we can put an end to the cruel dancing monkeys trade. Forever.
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