A number of supermarkets in the UK removed coconuts and related goods from their shelves, after getting to know that they had been picked by ‘monkey labourers’ who had been exploited for this purpose. The monkeys had allegedly been ‘snatched’ from the wild and trained to pick coconuts, by a company in Thailand.
In a tweet earlier on Friday, the British Prime Minister’s fiancée Carrie Symonds, a conservationist, called on all supermarkets to boycott the products. Waitrose, Ocado, Co-op and Boots vowed to stop selling some goods following this revelation.
Over 100 pig-tailed macaques that had been held captive were released after the discovery of them having been used as ‘coconut picking machines’. While male monkeys could pick over 1,100 coconuts in a day, the female ones’ count was relatively less.
PETA had discovered over 8 farms in Thailand that had bred monkeys for this purpose. It said it also discovered “monkey schools”, where the animals were trained to pick fruit, as well as ride bikes or play basketball for the entertainment of tourists. “The animals at these facilities – many of whom are illegally captured as babies – displayed stereotypic behaviour indicative of extreme stress,” PETA said in a statement.
It was also revealed that Thailand has reportedly started sterilising hundreds of monkeys in Lopburi province, which is famous for the macaque population, as the animals have been turning aggressive and hungry amid COVID-19 lockdown.