A MACAQUE once adopted me. The little juvenile primate wandered into my then-office, an environmental non-governmental organisation (NGO) nestled within a tiny forested enclave at the foot of Federal Hill, and decided to make itself home there. Soft brown eyes searched mine imploringly while clinging to my arms for dear life. As adorable as it looked, I wasn’t equipped enough to care for a hapless animal that literally wrecked our office and lay siege on our biscuit stash in the pantry.
Their habitat eroding, with more houses and bungalows sprouting on what was once a densely forested hillock, macaques like Ashy (as I named my little juvenile friend) flee to areas where they aren’t welcomed. From pillaging through homes and garbage bins, their ubiquitous presence became the bane of citizens as they grew aggressive and got used to human presence.
Human-macaque or even as it stands, human-wildlife conflict isn’t new here. As our forest landscape dwindles, the chances of seeing wildlife unwittingly migrate to human-populated areas rise alarmingly. With that, comes a series of problems along with the other increasing threats of trafficking and poaching. News of juvenile primates sold as pets are on the rise. Species like the Dusky Leaf Lutung or Spectacled Langur are being blatantly hawked on social media to this day. Due to the primates’ small size, adorable face and gentleness, they're often targeted by poachers who’d catch them to be sold off as pets.
From great apes and monkeys through to the more remotely related lemurs and lorises, primates hold a special appeal to animal-lovers as they tend to possess easily identified facial features, in many cases bearing some vague resemblance to our own. However, there remains insufficient research into the behaviour and intelligence of primates despite the fact that it could lend invaluable insights into what our shared ancestors may have been capable of around millions of years ago.
No matter the special connection we appear to feel with our primate relatives, there is now an imminent risk that these fascinating yet little-studied species could face extinction mainly due to the unstoppable spread of one primate species — namely ours.
“Up until very recently, the exact number of primate species in Malaysia wasn’t widely known,” laments Peter Ong. We’re seated in the cavernous space at Ruang by Think City in Jalan Hang Kasturi, Kuala Lumpur where mesmerising images of Malaysian primates shot by Ong are prominently displayed.
Project Monyet, the brainchild of the intrepid musical performer, photographer and founding member of the Malaysian chapter of environmentalist and primate champion Dr. Jane Goodall’s Roots & Shoots — a youth-led movement empowering young people to create positive change for people, animals and the environment — aims to capture, photograph and raise awareness on Malaysia’s primates. “There’s really not much information found on our primates,” notes Ong, adding vehemently: “That’s shocking!”
FINDING ANSWERS
The idea of Project Monyet began with a question posed by Goodall during her last visit back in 2017. “What is the status of the primates here in Malaysia?” she had asked. Ong didn’t know the answer. “I thought Google held all the answers!” he quips, chuckling. His web-search revealed no easy answer to Goodall’s question. “I was thunderstruck,” he recalls, adding incredulously: “You can send a man to the moon, we’re trying to invent a flying car and we still don’t know how many primates we have in Malaysia!”
The mystery piqued him. “I decided to find out for myself, ask the questions myself and see what’s out there!” he says resolutely, shrugging his shoulders. Armed with his camera, Ong embarked on a personal quest to photograph as many primate species as possible.
Malaysia, he found, is one of only two countries in Asia and five countries globally that are home to five primate families. From those five families spring a host of species including Lorises, Tarsiers, Leaf Monkeys, Gibbons, Proboscis Monkeys and the iconic Orangutan.
Out of such a diversity and wealth of species, deforestation, uncontrolled urban expansion, poaching and the illegal wildlife pet trade have driven their numbers down. The Orangutan is listed by the IUCN Red List (International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species) as “Critically Endangered”, all our Gibbon species are “Endangered”, many are declared at a “Vulnerable” stage, with only one species, the Long Tailed Macaque, listed as a population of “Least Concern”.
What's alarming, he tells me dryly, is how we still have species that are listed as ‘Data Deficient’. “This means we’ve not had enough research done on such species to determine the health and numbers of these primates,” explains Ong, shaking his head. He was appalled.
Out of at least 25 species believed to be located in this nation, at least four to five of these are found to be data deficient. “In this age of technology where it’s relatively easy to find out about the backgrounds of people, there’s remarkably little that can be learnt about our very own primates existing in our own backyard,” he remarks.
OUT ON A LIMB
One of the first NGOs the 43-year-old approached was the Malaysian Primatological Society, an organisation aimed at conducting primate-related studies and promoting conservation. They were hesitant at first, recalls Ong chuckling. “You don’t know who I am but I know you and I want to help,” he told them brashly. After some convincing (and once they were assured that he wasn’t a stealthy poacher, says Ong, chuckling), they agreed to work with him.
Ong intends to pass these images on to researchers and NGOs who need them. After all, the humble camera has more often than not played an important role in wildlife conservation. Scientists, he says, can use photographic evidence as a means to document wildlife presence, abundance and population changes, particularly in the face of deforestation and habitat destruction.
Researchers had confided that there weren’t enough photographic documentation of primates and such images would go a long way in helping them with their study of these animals. “Please use my photographs,” he responded at once.
Equally important, these photographs could be used to raise conservation awareness nationwide — hence, Project Monyet — and form an integral part of ongoing campaigning and lobbying to save threatened or endangered species. In this case, primates.
The project seemed simple enough at first. After all, there were only about 25 species of primates to photograph. How difficult could it be? “Famous last words,” he quips half-ruefully with a hearty laugh. He hadn’t quite anticipated the difficulty in navigating through a tropical rainforest in pursuit of reclusive primates.
“Just 25 images!” he repeats grinning with an exaggerated eye-roll. Starting his quest with the pig-tailed macaques abundantly found in the Segari forest, Ong lugged his camera and followed researchers into the rainforest. He was soon wading knee-deep in mud and cutting through the dense thicket with a parang in hand. “There were leeches but they were not the worst of my problems. That distinction went to the damned thorny rattan vines that kept snagging my clothes and knapsack!” he recalls.
Did you feel like you were in the middle of an Indiana Jones movie? I ask, grinning. “Those who think that this venture was a glamorous stint need to get their damned heads examined!” he replies, guffawing. “What am I doing here?” he thought. “Has it been only fourty five minutes? Jesus help me!” he moaned inwardly as he trudged on, camera in hand.
The struggle was worth it, he continues. It was quite an experience to finally view these elusive macaques. “Seeing these creatures in the wild and realising that they had as much claim to this land as I did, impacted me,” says Ong, musing: “Who are we to deprive them of the right to exist?”
He then whips out his mobile phone, exclaiming: “Let me show you some videos!” As one intriguing video plays, Ong shares with me anecdotes and information he gleaned from observing the pig-tailed macaques. “There’s nothing quite like observing wildlife in their natural habitat,” he enthuses, eyes shining.
He went on to document at least 14 out of the 25 species of primates all over Malaysia. “It wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be,” Ong admits. He’d ask locals for locations and when there were primates spotted, he’d pack his bags and head on to wherever they were said to be located. “Sometimes I’d return empty handed,” he tells me, shrugging his shoulders. But of course, there were plenty of rewarding moments including being able to photograph newly discovered species like the East Bornean Gray Gibbon and even a special species of primates found in Selangor aptly called the Selangor Silver-leaf monkeys. “Discoveries of rare and new species are being made to this day, so how much do we know of primates, really?” he asks pointedly.
NATURE LOVER
The entire project, says Ong emphatically, was self-funded. “I think Malaysians need to get off the antiquated idea that they can only make a difference if someone funds them,” he remarks bluntly. The need to protect the environment is dire, he emphasises, adding: “There’s really so much to do!”
The Penang-born photographer has always been a nature lover since young. He had initially wanted to be a zoologist, confides Ong, recalling how he studied very hard to get into the medical field. “I loved animals so much,” he says wistfully. However, his father was a lawyer and back then, the only degrees worth pursuing were medicine, law, engineering and accounting. “So I took up law instead,” he explains, smiling.
He earned his Masters in Law but decided against pursuing a doctorate. “I got tired of being a poor student!” he quips. Returning from the UK, Ong joined a bank before leaving for the advertising industry. Smart enough to snag such jobs, he was smarter still to realise that they were not for him.
Music and singing have always been something he loved doing since young. “I won several scholarships back at the University that allowed me to take private singing lessons and music classes,” he shares. He soon decided to veer off the traditional job route into theatre. His first opera gig was Tosca by the now-defunct Lyric Opera Malaysia. Invitations soon rolled in for him to sing opera in Bangkok and Singapore. “And that’s what I’ve been doing ever since,” he tells me, smiling.
But nature, insists Ong, has never strayed far from his mind. Reading about the rapidly declining numbers of tigers in our forests and how our Sumatran rhinoceros is now declared extinct in our nation have left him shocked and outraged. “We have to act before we lose yet another species,” he avers. Everywhere he went, Ong noticed the devastating human impact on the environment. “Rubbish thrown everywhere, indiscriminate logging, air and water pollution,” he reels them one by one, his voice shaking in disgust and disbelief.
The number of mammals, insects, amphibians, fish and birds is in steep decline, the world’s forests are on fire and the abundance of life is diminishing at rates unprecedented in human history. Our TV screens are full of images of gorgeous wildlife, but forests and animals are threatened with destruction and extinction and the authorities seem paralysed, he laments. “In a span between 1999 and 2015, I've been told that we've already lost close to 150,000 orangutans,” he says heavily.
Project Monyet, he says, is his way of playing his part for conservation. We are dependent on nature for everything and we cannot disregard that fact due to urban arrogance. “It’s time we did our bit… We must! We can no longer wait for that somebody else or even NGOs to bring positive change — we have to be that somebody,” he concludes vehemently.
As I walk around the exhibition hall looking at Ong's riveting photographs of primates, I’m reminded once again of Ashy, my little macaque friend. Recalling its brown eyes staring reproachfully back at me as Wildlife Department officials carted it out of my office, I can only hope that the macaque is now safely ensconced within the protective confines of a forest where it can continue to survive and thrive. After all, as Ong says succinctly, it deserves a chance to live freely as much as I do.
Project Monyet
Where: RUANG by Think City, 2 Jalan Hang Kasturi, KL
Until November 28
For further details, go to www.facebook.com/projectmonyet