UK retailers stop buying coconuts collected by monkeys

According to the BBC with reference to the organization PETA - "People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals", wild monkeys are caught in the jungle and trained to collect coconuts on palm trees. Pigtail macaques in Thailand turned into "coconut harvesting machines," animal advocates inform.

As soon as information about this appeared in the British media, supermarket chains such as Waitrose, Ocado, Co-op, Boots and Morrisons decided to abandon the sale of products that are made from coconuts slave monkeys.

On the eve of the campaign against the "monkey labor" joined the bride of British Prime Minister Carrie Symonds, who called for stopping the sale of coconut products to another large chain of stores - Tesco.

“Well, you, Tesco! Your move! Please stop selling these products,” she wrote on her Twitter page. The answer from Tesco was not slow in waiting - the BBC journalists tried.

"Monkey labor is not used in our own brand of coconut milk and coconut drink, and we do not sell any of the brands PETA speaks about," a Tesco spokesman told reporters of the broadcasting corporation to justify the company.

He added that the network will certainly remove from the shelves "all products, if it turns out that forced monkey labor was used in their production."

PETA reports that they discovered eight farms in Thailand at once, where monkeys harvest fruits from coconut trees, which are then exported to many countries. According to animal advocates, an adult male collects up to a thousand coconuts per day, and a person collects a maximum of 80.

Representatives of the organization managed to find special schools where monkeys are trained to collect nuts and various circus numbers for the entertainment of tourists - riding a bicycle or playing basketball. PETA experts said that these animals are in a state of "severe stress".

“Monkeys are chained to car tires or placed in cages, where they can hardly turn around,” shared what they saw in PETA. If the monkeys tried to bite the trainer, then they removed the fangs, said animal advocates.

"We urge all decent people to stop using monkey labor by abandoning coconut products from Thailand," said PETA head Elica Allen.