First Look at Endangered Baby Monkeys Chained, Abused at Thai Coconut Industry Tourist Trap

First Look at Endangered Baby Monkeys Chained, Abused at Thai Coconut Industry Tourist Trap

London – Shocking, never-before-seen footage from a PETA Asia investigation takes viewers inside the schools where endangered baby pig-tailed macaque monkeys are tethered for years on chains so short they can barely move, kept in flooded or rubbish-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 – who are less than 3 months old and have been torn from their mothers – 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 socialisation. 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.

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. PETA is calling on the Thai government to shut down these schools.

“Thailand’s coconut-picking training schools trick unsuspecting tourists into supporting these pits of despair, where baby monkeys are snatched from their mothers, deprived of everything that’s natural and important to them, and chained until they lose their minds,” says PETA Vice President of UK Programmes and Operations Elisa Allen. “PETA is urging the Thai government to shut down these abusive training schools and calling on consumers to vote with their wallets and only buy coconut milk from countries where monkey labour isn’t used, such as India, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka.”

PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way” – opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk or follow the group on Facebook, X, TikTok, or Instagram.

Contact:

Jennifer White +44 (0) 20 7837 6327; [email protected]

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