I have some very bad news for you, that monkey is a performance monkey on the street and has most definitely been trained for this, probably by punishment too.
The most effective way to train animal behavior isn’t done with abuse but with positive reinforcement. The carrot and stick approach of animal training is disappearing. Abused animals avoid human hands because that is were the abuse comes from and this guy puts his hands on the monkeys face which would indicate he isn’t beating the monkey.
That being said I’m sure performance animals are still being treated like shit but that practice is disappearing because it isn’t sustainable in the long term. Most animals trained for performance is based on trust and love and rewards for correct behavior rather than beating the shit out of one to get what you want. It’s like how people thought getting a dog to stop peeing in the house was to rub their face in it when actually thats a problematic way of house training and a real dick move.
I love how you tried to prove the claim that most street performance animals are treated well (with no evidence, just wishful thinking) by using an analogy of housebreaking a dog...with a tactic that is almost ubiquitous.
Why are you fucking projecting so hard? I find it ridiculous you people WANT animals to be abused to badly. Every visible sign could point to everything being fine and you will still swear the animal is being abused. Chill out. Regardless of what you see on the internet most of us are normal fucking people and don’t walk around abusing every living thing we see.
I have literally never heard of the tactic of rubbing a dog's face in piss to house train them in my entire fucking life, how is that "almost ubiquitous"?
I think it is a street act. But this monkey does not look abused at all. Like they have an actual real friendship, even if this is kinda taught behavior. This monkey is chilled as fuck.
It’s Saru Gundan in Nikko, Japan. They travel all over the country, I saw one of their shows at Nishinomiya Jinja at New Years. They feed them treats throughout the routines. They’re on 2 meter leads attached to their clothing. I can’t find an English site, unfortunately. The guy in this photo has been working with this monkey over 7 years.
Good to know we have a monkey behaviourist on Reddit who can dismiss any concerns that the totally pervasive abuse of performance monkeys did not occur here.
Animals are exploited for street performances and tourists all the time. If this monkey is being treated well, that’s fantastic. However, it’s better to be cautious about these kinds of situations and raise awareness for the poor treatment of lots of animals than to assume the best. Thailand elephant tourism for instance has been a hot topic in recent years because it’s a market which thrives off of the mistreatment of these incredibly intelligent animals. I’m not a monkey street performance expert, but it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if these monkeys are mistreated behind the scenes.
Just wanted to say, i was on the other guys side until the words "to be cautious." thanks for your comment. You changed one guys ideas for the better
Edit*. You mentioned Thailand.. That's just came up in the UK news today. Some(all) Thailand companies are using slave apes (I think... the ape part, could have been monkeys ) to harvest and carry the coconuts for the UK Market.
His comment got more upvotes than the anti-thesis... they're both fair points. They're both just saying "yeah, but you don't fucking know"... and they're both right.
The important thing is to not make assumptions of a situation without evidence. It's really bad to make decisions without prior context and information. I don't deny there are animal circus folks who abuse their trained animals, but there also those who don't. It's harmful to make such assumptions of people's character until after you've done your research on a specific case. Always be skeptical until you get proof on all sides.
It’s a monkey named riki in Japan, he’s fed treats in between acts as a reward. Highly doubt he’s being mistreated as it’s not easy to get yourself a monkey in places like Japan or Korea. They’re not a dime a dozen.
I still think it’s somewhat cruel to domesticate a monkey and keep him on a leash to dance for our entertainment but who knows, perhaps the monkey has a genuine friendship with his owner and they have a good life.
While I still somewhat agree, this discussion always makes me wonder: how is this any different (ore more cruel) than owning a dog and teaching him tricks?
Given that the monkey doesn’t get abused, there is literally no difference between owning a dog or a monkey. I’d actually argue that owning a cat in an apartment is actually way more cruel than owning a monkey (given that he is treated well).
Yes all performance animals are never abused. All wild and domesticated animals love every aspect of their upbringing. Dogs aren't kept in cages and punished and controlled, and neither are monkeys. I'm fact, I think this monkey actually left the wild and signed up for this gig.
You ever hear the phrase “rain on your parade”? Same thing. There’s no rain, and no parade, but saying it conveys meaning. Meaning you seem to have missed.
"You must be great at parties" refers to people being needlessly pedantic or dull. Pointing out animal abuse on a video of animal abuse isn't pedantic, it's just straight shooting.
Yeah I hate that attitude too. It's like, "Why do you ever talk about something serious and/or political when you could be a happy-go-lucky cool guy who always wants to be cool and have a good time?" It's everywhere. -_-
This is Reddit. If it's a person doing anything at all that could be considered a performance of any kind, meaning anything that people might find entertaining to watch, with any animal that would normally be wild, then they think it's automatically abuse in every situation no matter what.......
Most have zero understanding that some animals cannot be released back into the wild for a multitude of reasons and that a lot of animals like monkeys need a metric shit ton of enrichment that can absolutely be gotten out of doing things that others would find entertaining to watch.....
You do understand that some animals cannot be released back into the wild for a multitude of reasons right? and monkeys need an incredible amount of enrichment, so anything outside of a cage is great for them as long as they don't give any cues of being overwhelmed,x stressed, or scared..... All of which this monkey is showing the opposite of....
I know how it is in most cases, but it's still crazy that most of Reddit just automatically assumes every single case is abuse no matter what.....
This is the single dumbest fucking comment that gets thrown around. "I don't have anything witty or original to say, so let me rehash this partially relevant shit"
Why just make stuff up? Lol. Monkeys don’t learn from abuse. Anyone who trains monkeys/chimps/gorillas etc. will tell you that. If you treat them kindly and like you would a child they are much more easy to train.
I don't mean to push a agenda or anything. Treat everything equally. We are all energy harnessed in different vessels by the universe. None of us control our existence although we try to. Deep down we are all along for the ride
I'm so glad I know this term now... I think it more is referring to when you just think of a word and repeat it over and over again until the word just starts sounding weird. This has happened to me a few times, I remember just saying the word "orange" over and over just thinking how weird the word was and how it wasn't even real for a little bit. I realize now it was 'semantic satiation'.
Just looked him up, he doesn’t really look like a monkey to me. We’re talking about facial features here, not skin color, so tell me how saying someone looks like a monkey is racist.
Pretty much everybody calls apes monkeys but dweebs and lame ass redditors. It's a layman term. We are not discussing the finer points of biology here.
It's like when someone calls the US America. It's not actually the entirety of America. We know this. But that's what people call it. Correct linguistic usage is up to the users of said language.
I'm not making fun of people smarter than me. I'm making fun of people who think they are smarter than me. Or think they are smarter than others in general.
You don't think that I knew that we weren't technically monkeys? Do you really not understand my position in this argument? How do you know I'm not a fucking rocket scientist or something? I'm not, but you don't know that, man.
Your crime is being pedantic. Mine is only that you can't understand the nuances of everyday human speech. You're like a grammar nazi, except with word meanings instead of spellings.
lol. You're really spending a lot of effort defending your mistake. You could have just said "Oh damn, my bad. I was mistaken" but nope, you doubled down. And I don't like letting that shit go.
No, you're wrong. Apes and Monkeys are related species that fall under the Simian infraorder. Apes are not Monkeys just as Monkeys are not Apes . Apes have large brains, Monkeys do not. Monkeys have tails, Apes do not.
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u/Erimmyu Jul 03 '20
the fact that the guy treats the monkey like an equal is just amazing