There’s a new animal attraction that’s got people up in arms. Despite the controversy, it’s a huge hit at Bangkok, Thailand’s Safari World animal park. It seems park employees have managed to train orangutans to put on kickboxing displays. That’s right, they’ve trained monkeys in the art of hand-to-hand combat, because it always works out so well to train a violent species how to kill without using weapons like spears. They’ve also trained monkey ring-card girls, just to complete the spectacle! I wonder if they also have monkey photographers at ringside.
Now, while you can criticize the encouragement of monkey-on-monkey crime, and you can definitely criticize the conditions in which Safari World keeps its big orange apes, at least there are rules in place. As you can see, the monkeys have on boxing gloves, so they can’t really hurt one another with their fists. There’s also a referee in place, to break the two up should things get too violent.
However, PETA, Borneo Orangutan Survival, and other animal activists are quick to point out that Safari World has had monkey fights before, and that the facility has been shut down before due to poor treatment of animals. The zoo also smuggled apes in illegally from Indonesia. No one’s sure why the organization is allowed to restart the monkey fights.
Tags: Safari World, Bangkok, Thailand, orangutans, kickboxing, monkey fights, kickboxing orangutans, monkeys trained to fight, zoos, unusual animals, animal acts, animals trained to fight, PETA, Borneo Orangutan Survival
