REGULATING MONKEY TRADE GIVES PRIMATES MORE PROTECTION
REGULATING MONKEY TRADE GIVES PRIMATES MORE PROTECTION
By Hanka Kawecka-Lee
JAKARTA (JP): Selling monkeys to research institutes and
pharmaceutical companies for laboratory testing is a lucrative
but very controversial business.
Right now, the Government is in the process of amending
legislation on this subject. New regulations prepared by the
Ministry of Forestry are expected to come into effect shortly,
which will allow the export only of captive-bred monkeys.
Combined with new import restrictions in the United States and
elsewhere, these changes should make scenes such as that
described below a thing of the past.
The monkeys were scrambling for the safety of the forest.
Dropping down from the high canopy, the smaller pushed by the
larger, and females by males, it was a frantic exodus from the
enclosure to what, at first glance, appeared to be freedom. After
being transported from the south Sumatran jungle to the western
coast of Java, the animals were exhausted and petrified.
The narrow plank which connected the holding area with the top
of the nearest trees became a battle ground since, just as
the animals reached the outstretched branches, the enemy awaited
them. A contingent of already-established monkeys, using their
teeth and flailing limbs, attacked the newcomers, unloading their
own frustration at being displaced.
The spectacle was watched intently by an animal dealer, to
whom this live cargo represented a small fortune.
Although the general public like to believe that the monkeys
used in medical trials are purpose-bred, this is generally not
the case. Most monkeys exported from Indonesia have been caught
in the wild, many from southern Sumatra.
Sleeping tree
David Wills of Humane Society International recently witnessed
a trapping operation, and this is how he described it in the
society's newsletter:
"Capture methods vary. Often a group of primate trappers
locate a 'sleeping tree'.... As night falls, (the monkeys) gather
together for safety and comfort, usually at preselected 'sleeping
trees'.... Once trappers locate a tree, in the darkness, after
the monkeys have bedded down, they surround the tree with large
nets. As dawn comes, the monkeys awake...(and) walk into a
virtual war zone.
"Monkeys are grabbed by their tails, and have their arms
pinned behind them. If they try to protect themselves, the
trappers simply take a stick or stone and bash in their teeth....
As many as fifteen animals are stuffed into a cage less than one
foot by one foot by three feet.... Agents only take the animals
they feel are suitable for research. The rest, who are too large,
too aggressive, or too old are usually sold for food or simply
killed...."
Although local dealers are the ones catching and selling the
monkeys, the market is fueled by foreign institutional buyers,
mainly from the United States and Japan. According to one
prominent trader, it was a well known American university that,
through continuous requests for laboratory animals, encouraged
him to leave the mining business and become an animal dealer.
The arrival of AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) has
provided an excellent excuse for all animal dealers: The need for
laboratory testing is justified to any layman as a vital service
to humanity. Only those closely involved in Human
Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) research know that a very limited
number of monkeys, which have to be laboratory-bred, are in fact
used for AIDS testing. The others are used for the production of
various vaccines, and for pharmaceutical trials.
The government's justifications for granting export permits
for long-tailed and pig-tailed macaques have recently come under
fire from local NGOs. It has come to light that some NGOs have
vested interests in incriminating established dealers so they
might break into the business themselves.
Others, genuine NGO's like the prominent Indonesian
Environmental Forum (Walhi), act out of a sense of ethics and
honest concern for the future of wildlife in the country.
"The lack of reliable information on the size of the wild
monkey population, from which thousands are taken for sale each
year, is worrying", says Suraya Afiff, Walhi's chief ecologist.
The last census in Sumatra was carried out before many of the
government's transmigration schemes were introduced, which have
boosted the local human population with poor farmers from Java.
"Even worse", she declares, "is the lack of control and
supervision in catching and transporting the monkeys."
Her words are echoed in Wills' report, which quotes one trader
describing a competitors activities in these words: "If he ships
1,000 monkeys, you can guarantee that 5,000 were captured and
processed." The rest, it is obvious, either died or ended up in a
cooking pot.
Dead on arrival
In 1992, a shipment of 110 Indonesian macaques caught the
attention of the American public: all were dead on arrival.
How many sick and injured animals are left to rot in the
jungle, no-one knows.
As many southeast Asian countries, including neighboring
Malaysia and the Philippines, have recently stopped the export of
monkeys, animal dealers here have become increasingly popular
overseas.
Stephen Nash, Southeast Asia Director of TRAFFIC and former
director of the World Wide Fund for Nature in Indonesia, calls
for more effective enforcement of official regulations and
procedures, saying that "Indonesia has a potentially effective
trade management system of using quotas, catch permits, transport
permits and export permits.
"However, until this system is correctly implemented, I expect
that additional Indonesian species will become threatened through
an excessive 'legal' trade." This may very well apply as much to
long-tailed and pig-tailed macaques as to other animals. It is
only recently that some animal dealers have started captive
breeding programs.
Suraya commented favorably on the importance of the
government's new regulations, but added "How will the origin of
the monkeys be determined for sure?" Some observers are still
wondering if the trade needs to be stopped completely.