We stepped into his troupe’s practice room,where Harada introduced me to his colleagues
and their furry collaborators dressed in dia-
pers, including four new babies. He explained
that the group keeps a rigorous training
schedule—two hours in the morning and two
hours in the afternoon, except on days when the
monkeys are performing.
Earlier that morning, I’d marveled at the ani-mals’ acrobatics during a show for 300 toddlers
who were sitting with their legs crisscross in a
preschool gymnasium. The star of the show was
Ponzo, wearing a bright yellow vest and a black
jumpsuit. The children squealed with delight as
the monkey nailed his tricks, striding across the
auditorium on stilts that towered above Harada
and even catapulting over a boy who had volun-
teered to sit in a chair. “Ankoru! Ankoru!” the
children yelled. “Encore! Encore!”
Now back at the Sen-zu office, the trainers
stripped off the monkeys’ diapers and shut
them into red metal cages, where they live
when not performing. Then the trainers set
about their end-of-day routines: scrubbing foul-
smelling feces off the metal drip trays beneath
the cages and preparing bowls of oranges,
apples, and bananas for the monkeys’ dinner.
They placed the bowls in a row on the floor
and in unison presented the food to their per-
formers. It was five o’clock, time to go home.
They’d be back before breakfast to prepare for
the next show. jRene Ebersole writes about animals and wildlife
crime for National Geographic. Jasper Doest won
the 2019 Wildlife Photographer of the Year Photo-
journalist story award for this project.CULTURE, OR ABUSE? 113