“Are monkeys forced to pick coconuts?” The PETA Asia investigation heard round the world answered this one in full: Monkeys in Thailand are kept chained, abusively trained, and forced to climb trees to pick coconuts that are used to make coconut milk and other products.
Which Coconut Milk Brands Use Monkey Labor? Does Chaokoh Still Use Monkey Labor?
Chaokoh, a coconut milk brand that’s sold in some stores across the U.S., is among those that sell coconut products made using forced monkey labor. (Thankfully, after hearing from PETA and kind consumers like you, Target and other major retailers are refusing to profit from chained monkeys’ misery—by nixing Chaokoh from their shelves.)
If you buy coconut milk, you’re doing a huge kindness to cows. Nevertheless, don’t inadvertently support abuse by purchasing coconut milk products that depend on monkey labor.
Here are 10 reasons not to buy coconut milk that involves monkey labor:
- Many monkeys used in the Thai coconut industry are reportedly illegally abducted from their families and homes when they’re just babies.
- “How are monkeys used to harvest coconuts?” Like Kulap, seen below, they’re fitted with rigid metal collars and kept chained.
- Denied the freedom to move around or socialize with others, these intelligent animals slowly lose their minds.
- Driven to desperation, they pace and circle endlessly on the barren, trash-strewn patches of dirt where they’re chained.
- The terrified young monkeys are forced to perform stressful, confusing tasks, like twisting heavy coconuts until they fall off trees from a great height.
- If monkeys try to defend themselves, their canine teeth may be pulled.
- To earn more money off these animals, some trainers also force them to participate in circus-style shows in which they entertain paying visitors by riding bicycles, shooting basketballs, and performing other confusing and demeaning tricks.
- These monkeys are transported in cramped cages that are barely large enough for them to turn around in. Some get left inside locked cages in the back of a pickup truck, with no shelter from the driving rain.
- Tethered by the neck with a metal collar, monkeys are forced to climb up and down trees to collect coconuts.
- Monkeys are not ours to exploit, abuse, or use.
Bonus: Go-Go’s singer, Thailand resident, and longtime PETA supporter Belinda Carlisle wants you to boycott Chaokoh, too:
“Since PETA Asia released its investigation, more than 25,000 stores have dropped … Chaokoh, and customers around the world are boycotting [the brand] because of [its] connection to animal abuse,” Carlisle wrote in a letter to Costco urging the grocery store chain to reconsider their relationship with Chaokoh.
Which Coconut Brands Don’t Use Monkey Labor?
Make sure the coconut milk you buy comes from A Taste of Thai, Native Forest, DREAM, or other brands that don’t profit from monkey labor.
Coconut Brands That DON’T Use Monkey Labor
In addition to ensuring that your coconut products don’t come from Chaokoh or any other company that exploits monkeys, please sign below to urge Chaokoh to stop supporting the cruel Thai coconut industry and to start obtaining its coconuts from companies that don’t use monkeys:
Take Action for Monkeys Forced to Pick Coconuts
Urge 99 Ranch Market to Stop Selling Coconut Milk That Hurts Monkeys
