Monkey Show at Indonesian Primate Day Celebration in Malang

MALANG - Wildlife protection organization, ProFauna Indonesia, staged a unique action to celebrate Indonesian Primate Day.

The action attracted the public's attention because there was a monkey show, but it was different from the ordinary ones. The role was inverted: the person in monkey became the master while the man took the monkey's role.

Other monkeys surrounded the show while throwing coins to "Sarimin" (a name given to any show-monkeys, or in this case the man). Snacks thrown at Sarimin were also taken greedily in between his actions.

This campaign is a satire for human's cruelty towards animals, especially primates, by abusing them as a medium of entertainment. In addition, the activists also called for a halt to Indonesian primate trades.

"This year's celebration of the Indonesian Primate Day is the first time ever, and it is celebrated by people in more than 25 cities" claimed Swasti Prawidya Mukti, ProFauna Indonesia's campaign officer last Thursday (30/1/2014).

Swasti then added that more than 95% of the traded primates were captured from the wild, in a cruel and deadly means.

ProFauna's data mentions that one of the most traded primates is the Slow Loris (Nycticebus sp.). There were at least 40 cases of Slow Loris trade in 2013.. Traders usually remove the teeth of this illicitly popular pet animal.

The activists also encourage the public to be more proactive in conserving the primates by not buying and keeping the poor primates as pets. They also demanded the government to take wildlife trade issues more seriously because many of the animals are highly endangered for example the Slow Loris, Javan Langur, and Siamang.

The IUCN had published a list of 25 most endangered primates in the world, 4 of which are from Indonesia (Sumatran Orangutan, Siau Island Tarsier, Javan Slow Loris, and Simakubo).

"These primates will surely extinct if there are no real efforts to conserve them," concluded Swasti.

Original Source: Okezone.