First Look at Endangered Baby Monkeys Chained, Abused at Thai Coconut Industry Tourist Trap
Sydney – Shocking, never-before-seen footage from a PETA Asia investigation takes viewers inside the “schools” where endangered baby pig-tailed macaque monkeys who are less than 3 months old and have been torn away from their mothers are tethered for years on chains so short they can barely move, kept in flooded or trash-strewn areas, and driven insane by endless confinement – all so that they can be forcibly trained to pick coconuts in the Thai coconut industry. The disturbing video reveals the physical, social, and psychological torment these monkeys endure.
PETA Asia investigators documented that baby monkeys—who were abducted from their families in nature or bred on-site and taken from their mothers—were tethered on ropes and chains with no shelter from extreme weather and denied comfort, enrichment, or adequate socialization. Many of them were tied to tiny cages on which their skin was chafed raw from the metal bars. Monkeys paced neurotically and some ran frantically while attached to tethers, repeatedly choking themselves on their collars.
Baby monkeys cling to each other at a Thai coconut-picking school in this image from PETA Asia’s investigative footage.
PETA notes that the schools—which are promoted to tourists on the Thai government website—put on deceptive coconut-picking “demonstrations” for visitors that involve adult monkeys who have been abused and broken. The group is calling on the Thai government to shut down these schools[ER2] .
“These schools, which train baby monkeys to pick coconuts, also con unsuspecting tourists into supporting an industry where baby monkeys are snatched from their mothers, chained up, and deprived of everything that’s natural and important to them,” says PETA Campaigns Advisor Mimi Bekhechi. “PETA is reminding consumers to avoid coconut milk from Thailand and instead ensure their products come only from countries where monkey labour isn’t used, like India, Indonesia, and the Philippines. We’re also urging the Thai government to shut down these abusive training schools.”
PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview – is calling on major supermarket chain Woolworths to stop selling Thai coconut products. For more information, please visit PETA.org.au and follow the group onFacebook andInstagram.
Contact:
Sascha Camilli [email protected]
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