Unlicensed monkey trainers ‘innocent’
Print Edition
FOUR macaque trainers in central China will be allowed to carry on with circus performances after a court overturned a verdict which found them guilty of illegally transporting rare wildlife.
The People’s Court of Xinye County in Henan Province said Bao Fengshan and three others were innocent given their “very minor offense.”
The trainers caused no harm to the macaques in their transportation and performances, the court said yesterday.
The four were detained by police last year when performing with six macaques on the streets of Mudanjiang in northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province, because they did not have a wildlife transport license.
At a court hearing in Heilongjiang in September, Bao were found guilty of illegally transporting rare wildlife but released without punishment.
The four appealed because they feared they would not be able to continue their circus performances given the conviction.
According to regulations, macaque performers need to have three licenses — for domestication and breeding, performing and wildlife transport. But most performers have no wildlife transport licenses due to the complicated administration procedures needed to obtain them.
“Our family has been macaque performers for generation after generation, we never had a wildlife transport license,” said Zhang Zhizhong, a macaque circus performer in Xinye.
Without the transport license, Zhang said he was often driven away by authorities in other places.
Though macaque circus performers finally won the case, the most troublesome issue has not yet been solved, said Zhang Junran, head of the Macaque Art Association of Xinye County.
“We hope that the relevant departments can simplify procedures for us to obtain all licenses, taking into account the specialty of the intangible cultural heritage,” said Zhang.
Zhang said he also hoped to set up formal macaque circus troupes and show the performances on stages instead of streets in the future.
Monkey circuses are a traditional art form in Xinye and listed as an intangible cultural heritage by Henan Province in 2009.
Currently, several hundred people in Xinye are macaque circus trainers and performers. They travel across the country to perform.
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