It has prompted authorities and local animal activists to intensify raids to prevent exploitation of the long tail macaques used in the shows.

On Saturday, eight macaques were confiscated in West Jakarta. Officials said the monkeys were sourced in West Java. “According to our informants, the monkeys were trained at centers in Tasik, Sumedang, and Palimanan,” Sugeng Santoso, forest resource conservation manager of the Jakarta Forestry Agency told The Jakarta Post on
Saturday.

Sugeng said the raid was conducted following reports from local residents that there were monkey shows in Tambora in West Jakarta.

Coordinating with animal rights group Jakarta Animal Aid Network (JAAN) and the Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA), the joint team followed the report to the densely populated Jl. Sawah Lio, in Jembatan Lima.

“Because street monkey shows are banned in Jakarta, they don’t perform on main streets or at crossroads. Instead, they try their luck in residential areas in small alleyways,” he said.

After the raid, the monkeys received medical examinations.

The monkeys will be transferred to a rehabilitation center in Bandung, West Java. After recovering from their trauma and any physical illness, they will then be released into the wild.

“Our concern today is to take away the poor macaques from the hands of the people who exploit them [rather than punishing the owners],” Sugeng said.

Topeng monyet shows have been traced back to 1890s during the Dutch colonial era, when wild monkeys and dogs were trained for entertainment, often of Dutch children.

The monkeys are captured from the wild and tortured, including being tied, hung and starved, for months during forced training to make them perform their various unnatural stunts.

Then-Jakarta governor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo banned the shows from Jakarta streets in 2014 over animal rights and health concerns.

In the years that followed it seemed that topeng monyet shows had been eradicated from Jakarta’s streets, before they made a comeback earlier this year.

Femke den Haas from JAAN said topeng monyet training was among the worst situations that could befall a monkey.

“I have worked with primates since I was 17 years old, I have never met more traumatized primates than the topeng monyet,” she said. “They are extremely scared as they are beaten and starved and hung by their chains.”

Femke said the confiscated monkeys would undergo rehabilitation of up to two years before being released into the wild.

“We have taken care of almost 100 now and released 67. We will soon release another group,” she added.

For many Indonesians topeng monyet shows were part of their childhood. Ahmad Syauqi, 22, a resident of Poris, Tangerang, Banten, said he remembered being fascinated watching a monkey perform when he was a child

“The master would order the monkey to dance with a hoop, ride a small motorcycle or a bamboo horse and do many things that I thought funny at that time,” he said, adding that he was unaware that the monkeys were in constant pain and tortured to do the stunts.

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