Social media often gets a bad rap even in the role it plays in wildlife trafficking. But our recent rescue of an endangered pileated gibbon (Hylobates pileatus) shows that social media can be used for good!
We received many reports of a video circulating on Facebook in Cambodia of a gibbon chained by the neck. The the Wildlife Rapid Rescue Team (WRRT) managed to track her down in Oddar Meanchey and were able to confiscate her with the assistance of local Forestry Administration officers. The beautiful female gibbon was brought to Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Center where she will receive permanent care by our dedicated staff. Unfortunately, because she has become dependent on humans, is is unlikely that she will be able to return to the wild.
I can not find word’s that can say how very thankful I am for WLA!! I first found out about WLA when a very very dear mother long tail macaque (Amari) and her daughter (Lori) were rescued by WLA!!!!! I have since tried to keep up on what WLA posts on their Facebook page.
It is so sad that people in those countries where so many of these exotic animal’s live have no respect for the life’s of those endangered animal’s!
The horrendous flood of YouTube video’s flooding YT of the monkey’s that live at the Siem Reap Park has destroyed the troop’s that have lived in and around the park for so many many year’s! It started so innocently I beleive by one man that loved the many monkey’s that live at the park so he started to follow them and video them and that drew thousand’s of viewer’s that feel in love with these amazing monkey’s! But then other people flooded the park and every area that troop’s lived and it has turned into such a very tragic thing for those dear monkey’s!
They people videoing them have created so much drama that we now have so many loved monkey’s missing, dead or very badly injured!!!!
Please if anyone read’s this that has any way of helping stop the tragic event’s that are going on ther eplease help in anyway possible!! It will continue to go on forever due to the money these video’s make from so many view’s! I have stopped watching them but there are so many people from all over the world that either watch because they love monkey’s or they hate them and love seeing the damage that is being done to them by the people that have access to the troop’s!
The Amari troop has all most been wiped out!!! There are very few monkey’s left in that troop due to the interference of human’s! They have started in on other troop’s killing mother;s or taking them to sale or to eat! There or so many orphan babies there now that it just break’s a person’s heart that has any kind of love and respect for animal’s!
What in the world can be done to help those many monkey’s there is obviously no protection for them! The authorities there are part of the problem they to have not care or respect for the animal’s there and are killing and injuring monkey’s!!!
It is so very sad that so many beautiful monkey’s that lived at that park for so many year’s are now dead, injured or possible sold to lab’s or taken as pet’s just to be dumped off again after they are no longer cute to video day in and day out!!!! That is another enourmous problem there at the park! People constantly dump off their pet monkey’s! The poor thing’s have been stolen from their mother’s and raised by human’s and have no clue how to survive on their own!! There is so much that could be said this could go on for ever!!
WLA is the only rescue center that I trust since ther eare now people stating they have started a recue for monkey’s and of course show many video’s of the monkey’s they have in cages but they obviously have no education on how to rescue or rehabilitate monkey’s!!! It is just another thing to make money of YT!!
There is a VERY simple solution. STOP viewing their videos! If they do not get views, YouTube pays them no money, and there wouldn’t even be a reason to film them 24/7 in the first place.
These sick, exploitive bastards are making a killing baiting and manipulating the animals. The assault them, instigate fights, disrespect the ranks of the troupes, and are feeding them so much they become lazy and obese, causing so many health and reproductive problems.
Once again, real easy sure fire way to stop the abuse, STOP WATCHING.
If viewers want to watch monkey videos, watch Arroz Marisco’s Channel. He films these family units of Rhesus Macaques in Hong Kong and does nothing to interfere with their lives or exploit them, and has been doing it for YEARS without any adverse situations occuring from it.
Achieving this result is what I would consider the penultimate jackpot here … and honestly, if I thought there was actually a chance that this very route alone could be successful, then I would consider throwing everything into a campaign that aims to get people properly educated about the real situation on the ground in Cambodia.
Unfortunately, we are not just dealing with people who innocently watch these videos, many of which are highly exploitative in nature, because they find the animals cute and entertaining to watch. A larger proportion of the views these videos receive are from those people who, for whatever reason, do find it immensely interesting watching back to back videos of mainly younger macaque members in some kind of distress, for example when they are reprimanded for no apparent reason, or the kidnapping themed videos.
Some of the people who post those really inane comments about how much they hate these animals, and how they enjoy watching them in situations that obviously appear to be distressing for the creature – these are the viewers you will not be able to educate and ultimately convince them to stop watching these videos because it’s their viewing habits which are causing a lot of the situations that they simply enjoy watching. Because their interest in the video content doesn’t rely so much on their conscious, their personal morality in general, nor their ethical stance on humane animal treatment, you simply will not be able to appeal to them to stop watching the videos in order to curb the income these channels derive from uploading such videos in the first place.
This is actually a fairly complex issue to approach resolving and will, in my opinion, take a multi-faceted approach to get this whole mess sorted out. I myself am a Wildlife Biologist, and honestly, I would really love it to be so simple as just telling people not to watch. I really am not making this out to be a complex undertaking because I’m some kind of lover of drama myself. I’m just being realistic. Human behaviour is rarely so simplistic or black and white.
Thank you for rescuing the monkey. I am so glad to see action being taken on these issues. They aren’t just hurting monkeys, there’s been an increase of videos where these camera people have given the monkeys small kittens and puppies to torture and kill. It’s upsetting that this goes on for a profit. The kitten abuse is getting worse because it gets them tons of views. Facebook and YouTube are full of them.