Wildlife Farmer

In Kuala Lumpur, the endangered species known as the long-tailed macaque is facing extinction because of illegal trade and loss of habitat. It’s the same old story of man not thinking ahead for one or another reason.

Without skipping a beat, the trade has even doubled after it was put on the endangered species list.  The attraction of being able to buy an animal on the endangered species list is too tempting to resist. People with money think of the monkey as a trophy or means of boasting. They don’t realize it’s an evil trade to kill an animal just to show it off as a trophy.

Just look at the figures: In 1999 to 2003, there was an estimated 120,000 of these monkeys that were traded in Indonesia, Cambodia, the Philippines, Laos, and Vietnam. In 2004 up to 2008, this figure shot up to 260,000 sold in the black market. It is big business.

The monkey is used primarily as a trophy, and then some less perfect samples are sold to laboratories for medical testing. The assurance that animals are no longer being brutally used to test drugs is not true. It is still a practice rampant especially in South East Asia. Other countries have also bought this primate for animal testing. In 2009 alone, almost 2,300 of these monkeys were shipped to Great Britain. The United States is also listed as having imported these animals although for what reason, it remains unclear.

It’s not just the fact that they will be the test subjects but also the fact that when they are shipped out, they are treated not as living things but as objects. Their cages are tiny and cramped, and they are not fed properly.

This type of exploitation can be stopped many times along the way from poacher to buyer but it does not happen. How is it possible that more than 2,000 were illegally sent to the UK without any disapproval from authorities? How could they have passed scrutiny?