Monkey business
My name is Joy Min. I am a 9th grader at Chadwick International School, South Korea.
During our family visit to Chiang Mai, we visited a place called the “monkey school” at the suggestion of our driver.
However, when we were entering, it came to us as a shock that the fee for each person was 200 baht. But our family thought it would probably be worth it as my brother and I would enjoy seeing the cute monkeys.
But we saw about 10 monkeys chained to the concrete floor and caged in very small areas. It looked like a prison. The closer I walked to the cages, the worse it got. The conditions they were in definitely didn’t seem ethical. Some monkeys also seemed mentally ill and physically ill.
For example, there was a monkey that kept spinning around in circles as it was the farthest it could get from where it was chained. Another monkey was lying on its back. This shocked me very much, but the staff were also trying to convince us to buy food to feed the monkeys, which was also not that cheap. All the monkeys’ fur was sparse. Their skin also seemed to be in a very bad condition.
The monkey show was even worse. Apparently, some of the monkeys were trained to do tricks such as “picking the coconut”. Another monkey was supposedly doing push-ups and sit-ups, but because all the monkeys were chained, the staff were holding the chain and basically just forcing the monkey to do those tricks.
They all seemed in fear, afraid as they were pulled around on short chains. After the show, we were so shocked.
This was clearly animal cruelty. We felt as if we’d wasted money, but most of all, we felt so bad, and I wanted to rescue those monkeys to some place they could live freely without those chains and cages.
On the way out, I looked through the Google reviews to see if we were the only people who saw this as animal abuse. As expected, a lot of other people had similar experiences. Some even went by driver suggestions like us!
In order to solve this issue, I would like to suggest a three-step solution:
Sending the monkeys and other animals in the centre to a vet to get treated, then going to a proper zoo in which they can be protected in an environment that properly simulates the wild rather than getting trained for a “show”.
The business licence for whoever owns the “monkey” school should be permanently revoked, as “Cruel ill-treatment, killing with unnecessary suffering, or unreasonably overworking an animal, is punishable with imprisonment of up to one month and/or a fine of up to 1,000 baht” (Sections 381, 382 of the Criminal Code).
The organisation should look into other places that are operating illegally and conducting animal abuse and also prevent similar incidents from happening in the future.
I will try to help in any way possible. Although I live in South Korea now, I will visit Chiang Mai again this summer from June through August.
JOY MIN