A personal view of trapping

As part of BUAV's investigation into the primate trade, I was sent to the tropical island of Mauritius in April 1992 to undercover film the trapping of monkeys for laboratory research.
Mauritius lies to the east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean and has a population of some 20 - 30 thousand macaques.

Many of these are being trapped and sent to the UK, to end up caged in European laboratories. The BUAV needed to witness at first hand the start of the chain, how were the monkeys caught, and what happens to the ones that were unsuitable for research? With this task in mind I set off on the trail.

Before too long I had made some excellent contacts with the main supplier of research monkeys, Bioculture Mauritius, and after much persuasion I was finally offered the chance to go out with one of the trapping teams.

We left at 4.00am the following morning. After a long and bumpy ride, our headlights swung off the road on to a rough track through the centre of a sugar cane field. Soon the sugar cane gave way to woodland and the track came to a halt. Looking out I saw my first monkey trap. Built in a small glade it consisted of a large wire cage, about 20 feet square, with a large spring door at the front held open by a pole. Tied to the top of the pole was a thick rope which led to a small hide made of branches covered in sacking and leaves. The hide was carefully concealed in the bushes, to one side of the open ground. One trapper grabbed a bunch of bananas and sugar cane, we left him in the cage setting the bait. We set off again and soon the truck started to climb the side of the mountain. It was still pitch black and the going was slow. Halfway up the mountain we stopped again, and another trapper jumped out, armed with bananas and cane, headed off to his trap. I jumped in beside the remaining trapper and we set off up the track to our trap.

It was dark when we arrived but time was getting on, so the trapper had to move quickly. First he tidied up the trap, taking down the banana branch and throwing out the remaining pieces of sugar cane. A large fresh bunch of bananas was wired to the center of the roof of the trap, and new sugar cane pieces were stuck into the ground. The trapper checked the pole hinging open the door, and the rope from the pole to the hide. Finally he drove the truck a little way down the hill, hiding it in the bushes. Returning to the hide we settled down to wait, making sure that only a small gap was left open.

Suddenly from behind the hide in the woodland came the distinctive call of a macaque. It was 6.00 am. A troop of Macaques were playing, some climbing branches, others chasing each other. They were some distance from the trap but would soon start seeking out their morning meal. The trapper explained that if the day was cool, the monkeys would remain near the top of the mountain to feed, if it became warm they would move further down the mountain, hence the different positions of the traps. They would either be caught early in the morning, or around midday when they begin to return to the higher forest. Soon our troop of monkeys still some way from the trap, began to disappear down the track and by 7.15am had all disappeared. "We will wait to see if they return, unless the other traps get them", the trapper said.

The sun was now fully in the sky, and although the hide was in the trees, it was still unbearably hot and airless. The trapper became more alert around midday, continually peering out of the hide, when suddenly he picked up the end of the rope attached to the trap pole. Looking out I could see a large male monkey cautiously approaching the trap.

It stopped at the entrance looking in at the feast laid out before it, but wouldn't go in. For some minutes it stood at the entrance, nervously looking around, before finally walking back to the safety of the trees. The trapper remained alert. Ten minutes later the male returned, perhaps hunger overriding his obvious distrust of this unnaturally presented meal, and again walked to the entrance. This time however after a quick glance over his shoulder he walked in.

Stopping briefly to eat the small pieces of food lying on the floor of the trap, he gradually made his way to the large bunch of sugar cane in the center of the trap. He ate as much as he could, storing as much of the cane in his cheeks, and within a few minutes he started to bound back towards the entrance. Suddenly he trapper half stood up and gave he rope in his hand a powerful tug. The pole immediately crashed to the ground, and the swing door slammed down, sealing the trap. The monkey, initially frozen by shock, ran away from the noise and threw himself onto one of the sides of the cage. The trapper ran out and quickly made his way to the trap.

By now the macaque was desperately trying to get away, climbing all over the inside of the trap and digging at the corners, all the while crying out a warning when the trapper edged towards him. He also rapidly spat out the food he had stored in his mouth. The trapper then collected a pair of grippers from one corner and made his way to the frightened monkey. Carefully he cornered the monkey and, with the grippers, pinned its head against the cage wall. Grabbing its tail he let go of the grippers and a tug of war ensued, the monkey determinedly hanging on to the wire. The trapper then leapt at the monkey, grabbing the scruff of its neck and pulling it off the wire and throwing it face down on the ground. Quickly he grabbed each arm, pinning it behind the monkeys back and finally pulling up its tail to complete the capture.

Holding the now immobilized monkey in one hand he reached over and grabbed a small cage to put the monkey in for its final trip down the mountain.

Whilst all this had been going on I had been busily filming and photographing the events, thinking I was witnessing a typical scene of a monkey being trapped for vivisection when, to my horror, through the viewfinder, I realized something quite different was happening. The trapper had released the arms of the monkey and was holding it only by its tail, the monkey desperately wriggling and writhing to reach the ground. Worse was then to follow. The trapper then swung the monkey upwards and brought him crashing to the ground.

The monkey lay stunned on the ground, but the trapper wasn't finished yet. Still holding onto the tail. He spiraled the monkey around so it fell on its back then on its front, before again swinging it high in the air and smashing it down again. The trappers aim was good and the monkeys head hit a large rock with a resounding crack. This time there was no need for any more beatings - the once proud macaque lay spread-eagled, face down in the dirt. The trapper reached forward and picking it up by the scruff, threw it into the cage. I asked the trapper what he was doing, what had the monkey done to get such a beating.

"We have too many large males at bioculture," he explained. "We have 300 for sale that the laboratories don't want so we kill the ones we capture. This one will be eaten by an African estate worker."
As I looked in horror at the prostrate monkey, lying in the cage, it slowly began to move. A number of its teeth were falling out, and blood was smeared over its face. Desperately it tried to sit upright, but each time it would drift back into unconsciousness. By now the trapper had returned with the truck, and picking up the cage, casually threw it in the back, the macaque tumbling over and over in the process. I just hoped that death would come quickly to end its terrible suffering.

We gathered up our belongings and borded the truck to make our way down to the other traps. Soon we arrived at the next track and I could see why only one monkey had returned. The monkeys I had seen early that morning had now entered this trap. The trapper had managed to catch a father, mother and baby, the latter two now imprisoned in a small cage. Having seen the fate of the other male the trapper was persuaded to release this male which fled into the trees once the door was opened, sadly without his family.

The trapper explained that the rest of the troop has scattered in all directions, when the gate crashed down, imprisoning the three and I could now understand why the monkeys were so cautious about entering the trap. We collected the two and made our way to the lowest trap which, of course, was empty.

Just before we left the estate, we had one last call to make - at the home of the African worker. My last sight of the male monkey was it lying upside down in the cage, on the doorstep of the worker. It was still blinking. I pointed out this to one of the trappers but all he said was, " Don't worry, it will soon die by the heat of the sun." It was 40 degrees centigrade.

The only thought that gave me some comfort from the terrible sadness I felt for that male monkey, was the fear I saw in the eyes of the mother and baby as they bumped around in the back of the truck on the way to the monkey holding unit. At least his suffering was almost over - unlike the two frightened animals next to me - theirs had only just begun.