Siem Reap, Cambodia — A baby monkey thrashes and squirms as it tries to escape the man who holds it by the neck over a concrete cistern, repeatedly dousing it with water. In another video clip, a person plays with the genitals of a young male macaque sitting on a block of limestone from an ancient temple to arouse him on camera.
Monkey abuse at the UNESCO World Heritage site of Angkor in northwest Cambodia is not always so blatant, but authorities say it is a growing problem as people look for new ways to attract internet users to generate money.
“The monkey should live in the wild, where it is supposed to live, but today it is treated like a domestic animal,” said Long Kosal, spokesperson for APSARA, the Cambodian office that oversees the archaeological site. of Angkor. “They’re creating content to make money off of having viewers on YouTube, so that’s a really big deal for us.”
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APSARA has few tools to stop YouTubers from filming in general, but has opened an investigation with the Ministry of Agriculture to gather evidence for legal action against the most serious attackers – who are them -even rarely filmed, said Long Kosal.
“If we can build a case, they will definitely be arrested,” he said. “Any animal abuser will be severely punished by law in Cambodia.”
Cambodia’s fight against animal abusers on YouTube has been seen elsewhere in Asia, and just last year saw a global network accused of producing and broadcast horrific videos of tortured monkeys and even killed was revealed by a BBC World Service investigation. At least 20 people in the United States and two in Indonesia have been investigated, including an Oregon man charged in June 2023.
BBC
The investigation found that hundreds of customers in the United States and other countries joined social media groups used to share disturbing content and paid to view the torture of long-tailed macaques, even requesting specific forms of abuse.
YouTube, Facebook and other sites remove videos with graphic content, but dozens of other clips of cute monkeys jumping and playing remain on the platforms, generating thousands of views and subscribers.
However, just making these videos involves very close interaction with the monkeys, which authorities and animal rights activists say creates a host of other problems, both for the macaques and for visitors. of one of the most popular tourist spots in Southeast Asia.
Recently, outside Angkor’s famous 12th-century Bayon temple, at least a dozen YouTubers, all young men, gathered around a small group of long-tailed macaques, moving closer to take photos of ‘a mother with a baby on her back and stalking her wherever she moved.
Wild monkeys feasted on bananas thrown at them by YouTubers and drank water from plastic bottles. A young macaque briefly played with a half-eaten neon green popsicle, discarded by the side of the path, before dropping it and switching to a banana.
A blue-shirted APSARA guard looked on, but those filming were unfazed, illustrating the main problem: It is acceptable to simply film monkeys, even if feeding them is frowned upon. At the same time, this makes them dependent on help, and the close interaction with humans means they become increasingly aggressive towards tourists.
“Tourists carry their food and they grab it,” Long Kosal said, flipping through several photos on his phone of recent macaque injuries. “If tourists resist, they bite and it’s very dangerous.”
Heng Sinith/AP
Foraging from tourists also attracts monkeys from the surrounding jungle to ancient sites, where they tear off pieces of temples and cause other damage, he added.
Tourist Cadi Hutchings was careful to keep her distance from the monkeys, after being warned by her tour guide of the increasing risk of being bitten.
“What they want is your food, but you also have to understand that there has to be a line between human intervention in nature,” said the 23-year-old from Wales. “It’s obviously a good thing that so many tourists are coming because it’s such a lovely place, but at the same time you have to be careful that with more and more people… the monkeys don’t acclimatize not too much.”
However, many other tourists stopped to take their own photos and videos – some holding out bananas to bring them closer – before heading to the nearby temple site.
YouTuber Ium Daro, who started filming the Angkor monkeys about three months ago, followed a mother and baby along a dirt road with his iPhone held on a selfie stick to get closer.
The 41-year-old said he did not see any monkeys being physically abused and did not see a problem with what he and the others did for a living.
“The monkeys here are friendly,” he said. “After we take their photos, we give them food, so it’s like we’re paying them to give us the chance to take their photos.”
As he spoke, a young macaque climbed up a spectator’s leg, trying – unsuccessfully – to get a plastic water bottle out of his pocket.
A YouTuber said he started filming monkeys during the COVID-19 pandemic, after tourist numbers plummeted, making it impossible to make a living as a tuk-tuk driver.
Daro said he was looking for a way to supplement his income as a rice seller and was too new to this field to have made much profit.
Many, like Phut Phu, work as salaried employees of YouTube page operators. The 24-year-old said he started filming monkeys two and a half years ago, when he was looking for outdoor work to help him deal with a lung problem.
Heng Sinith/AP
He usually works there every day from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., earning $200 a month – the equivalent of a Cambodian minimum wage job – and said he hoped authorities would not try to put a stop there. a term.
“I need these monkeys,” he said, holding a Nikon Coolpix camera with extreme zoom provided by his employer, the same model most YouTubers used.
Given the challenges of identifying and capturing those responsible for physically abusing the monkeys, as well as collecting easy money through YouTube videos, Long Kosal said APSARA’s task was difficult.
“That’s our problem,” he said. “We need to find solid reasons that we can use against them to not just abuse the monkeys.”
For Nick Marx, director of wildlife rescue and care at the Wildlife Alliance – which implements conservation programs across Southeast Asia and is involved in wildlife releases at Angkor – the answer is simple, but perhaps just as elusive.
“The biggest problem is that these (videos) are generated to make money,” he said in an interview from Phnom Penh. “If people who don’t like this stuff would stop watching it, it would really help solve the problem of abuse.”
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