The Malaysian Insight

IN Malaysia, there are many schools, teaching in many languages. But a school for monkeys?

Meet Wan Ibrahim Wan Mat, affectionately known as Pak Wan, who has been training pig-tailed macaques to pick fruits for 30 years, in Kampung Padang Halban, Kota Baru, Kelantan.

Pak Wan learnt to train monkeys when he was in his early 20s and over the years, the macaque master has trained hundreds of them.

The macaque owners buy the animals mainly from a dealer who sources them from Kedah, Terengganu and Perak. According to him, they are much easier to train than wild macaques from the jungle.

There are about 30 macaques at his house at any one time, but Pak Wan trains only one at a time because he wishes to establish trust between the master and the animal, which is the most important component of the training.

It typically takes Pak Wan two weeks to teach a young pig-tailed macaque to pick fruit from a tree. After that, for a fee of RM150, the macaque will be able to pick 500 fruits, including coconuts, petai and jering (dog fruit), in a day’s work.

In his late 60s, Pak Wan is imparting to his daughter his knowledge in training macaques.

The key, he says, is patience and a lot of love. – May 11, 2017.