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Mike White, the creator of hugely popular show The White Lotus, has called on the Thai government to protect monkeys from being forced to pick coconuts.
White wrote to Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra about the issue following a new investigation into forced monkey labor by PETA. Investigators from PETA Asia captured footage inside “schools” where baby pig-tailed macaques, an endangered species, are “trained” to pick coconuts. They are forcibly removed from their mothers and chained by the neck, some without access to water, some unable to reach other monkeys from whom they want to seek comfort.
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The third season of The White Lotus was filmed on Thai island Ko Samui, which White described as “a beautiful place” in his letter. “But I was shocked to learn from my friends at PETA that there and elsewhere in Thailand, monkeys are forced to work for the coconut industry,” he wrote. “I urge you to end this exploitation of our fellow primates and ensure that Thailand’s entire coconut industry transitions to humane harvesting methods that don’t rely on forced monkey labor.”
Thailand’s coconut industry
Monkeys have been used to pick coconuts in Thailand for centuries because they can pick far more in a day than humans can. Thailand is the tenth biggest coconut-producing country in the world. PETA Asia has done multiple investigations into the Thai coconut industry, revealing that the exploitation and abuse of monkeys is rampant.
At the monkey “schools,” handlers intimidate and abuse the animals to make them obedient, PETA Asia has reported. Handlers use methods including hitting monkeys and dangling them by their necks. Once the monkeys are “trained” they are sold to coconut farms where they are kept chained up in isolation in unsanitary conditions when they aren’t picking.
The “schools” are promoted to tourists, with coconut-picking “demonstrations” put on with adult monkeys who have already been abused into submission.
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“Thailand’s coconut-picking training schools trick unsuspecting tourists into supporting these pits of despair, where baby monkeys are snatched from their mothers, deprived of everything that’s natural and important to them, and chained until they lose their minds,” PETA Vice President of UK Programmes and Operations Elisa Allen said in a statement. “PETA is urging the Thai government to shut down these abusive training schools and calling on consumers to vote with their wallets and only buy coconut milk from countries where monkey labour isn’t used, such as India, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka.”
Mike White’s Animal Advocacy
White has been a vegan since 2005. In a testimonial for PETA in 2011, he explained that he it was his dog who influenced his decision to become vegan. “You know I have a dog who looks a lot like a pig, and I would look at him and I’d think, you know I can not eat pig any more,” he said.
His 2007 film Year of the Dog follows a character called Peggy as she deals with the death of her dog. Peggy becomes vegan, starts supporting animal rights causes, and adopts an abused dog.
When White was a contestant on The Amazing Race in 2009 with his dad, he sometimes struggled to find food he could eat. But he remained true to his principles. “Mike is a vegan, and there was hardly any food that he could eat along the way and he didn’t compromise, so there were times where he hadn’t eaten for two days, anything solid,” White’s father Mel said in an interview after the race.
