‘Monkey’ Prisoners to Douse Themselves in ‘Coconut Milk’ Outside Thai Embassy

On Thursday, a troop of PETA “monkeys” dressed in prisoner garb and bearing signs that read, “Thailand: Dump Monkey Labor” dumped buckets of “coconut milk” all over themselves outside the Royal Thai Embassy in Tokyo as they call for an end to the forced labor of pig-tailed macaques, who are chained, whipped, beaten, and made to spend long hours picking coconuts in the coconut industry.

“Baby monkeys belong with their mothers, not imprisoned at the ends of chains and forced to pick coconuts under constant threat of pain and punishment,” says PETA Senior Vice President Jason Baker. “PETA is calling on the government to end this abuse and ban forced monkey labor now.”

Credit: PETA

PETA investigations into the “schools” where endangered baby pig-tailed macaques are trained to pick coconuts found that they were often chained so tightly they could barely move, kept in flooded or trash-strewn areas with no shelter from extreme weather, and denied any comfort, enrichment, or adequate socialization. Many of them were tied to tiny cages on which their skin was chafed raw from the metal bars. The monkeys, who were abducted from their families in nature or bred on-site and torn away from their mothers, were driven insane by endless confinement—all so that they can be forcibly trained to climb trees and harvest coconuts.