Four macaque circus trainers acquitted in China

Four macaque circus trainers in central China will be allowed to continue performances after a court overturned a first-instance verdict which found them guilty of illegally transporting rare wildlife.

The People's Court of Xinye County in Henan Province announced Bao Fengshan and three others were innocent given their minor offense in a second trial verdict.

The trainers caused no harm to the macaques in their transportation and performances and thus the offense was very minor, the court said on Tuesday.

The four were detained in July 2014 by local police when performing with six macaques on the streets of Mudanjiang City in the northeastern Heilongjiang Province, because they did not have a wildlife transportation license.

A local court in Heilongjiang saw the case in late September and said he and his fellow trainers committed the crime of illegally transporting rare wildlife. But the court was lenient, not handing out criminal penalties.

Despite their release, the four appealed as 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, namely for domestication and breeding, performing, and wildlife transport. But most performers have no wildlife transport licenses due to the complicated administration procedures 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 when performing 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 relevant departments can simplify procedures for us to obtain all licenses, taking into account the specialty of the intangible cultural heritage," said Zhang.h 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. Its origins date back over 2,000 years during the Eastern Han Dynasty. Currently, several hundred people in Xinye are macaque circus trainers and performers. They travel to different places across the country to perform to earn money.

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