A firm quota for the export of long-tailed macaque monkeys bred in Cambodia’s four primate farms will soon be established by the Ministry of Agriculture, an environmental official said Wednesday.
Trade or sale of the endangered monkeys is permitted under the Convention for the International Trade of Endangered Species’ regulations, although the trade must be highly regulated.
“The quota will be set for the four companies the ministry has issued licenses to,” said CITES Secretariat official Suon Phalla, who stressed that the primarily Chinese and Vietnamese companies involved must not purchase wild macaques from protected areas for breeding.
According to the NGO WildAid, the four farms are located in Takeo, Kompong Chhnang, Kompong Thom and Kandal provinces.
Some officials have voiced concern that trade in the monkeys—shipped overseas to medical research centers that use them for experimentation because of their genetic likeness to humans—is not monitored as closely as ministry officials have claimed.
Sub Ra, director general of technical affairs for the Commerce Ministry, voiced his doubts that the majority of Cambodia’s farm-reared monkeys are bred for export to medical research facilities.
“The catch from the forest is also a way to export to the international animal market,” he said.
Neou Bonher, permanent deputy head of the Tonle Sap Biosphere Reserve secretariat at the Ministry of Environment, said no one knows for sure what percentage of macaques on the farms are from the wild.
“We are concerned because the more [macaque] farming there is the more local people will go to the protected wild and illegally catch and poach monkeys,” he said.
“We would like to have a clearer picture of what is going on, how they catch the monkeys and where they sell them,” Neou Bonher said. “It’s unclear how much the businesses are being monitored.”
