Animal Tourism:
Use as performers / entertainers
Use as performers / entertainers
When macaques are kept as entertainers, they face all the same welfare issues that pet macaques face. They may face additional welfare harms, too - for example, inhumane training methods; frequent transport, frequent exposure to large crowds and the attendant heightened risk of zoonotic disease transmission. Like pet macaques, it is not uncommon for them to grow increasingly dangerous as they reach maturity and attacks have occurred.
Apart from the direct welfare consequences to individual macaques and the danger posed to humans, the use of wild animals as entertainers misleads audiences about their conservation status and their suitability as human companions. It is likely that this has an effect on people’s behaviour towards wild animals, macaques included.
Less frequently, macaques are used as labourers (for example, on coconut farms in Thailand). The issues that these monkeys face are largely the same as those faced by “entertainer” macaques.
