It certainly does.

I'm glad to see that Target is attentive to such things. There's no excuse for abusing wild animals. Especially not in this case, there's no need to use monkeys. Young children are equally adept at climbing palm trees and could easily perform the same tasks.

Yikes, Elmer, that is funny in the most horrible way possible.

Elmer - So instead of abusing monkeys you want them to abuse children? Or was that sarcasm?

I would boycott the product but I can count on one hand the times I've used coconut milk in cooking. I'm sure I've had it in Thai and Indian food many times though.

What does the Elephant Union have to say on this labor favoritism?

LJ, my comment was intended to be similar to chisue's, in her expressing surprise that the Elephant Union hasn't issued a public statement about the matter. Maybe an example of absurd gallows humor. What I find to be the funniest things on the internet are when someone suggests an observation or reaction to a situation or what someone has shown or said, when that third party observation is reasonable and valid but at the same time completely off the wall and absurd. I'm not clever enough to be able to do that often but sometimes I see a chance - like here- to say something superficially plausible but absurd.

T-shirt messages and slogans are often like that too.

I was not aware that young coconuts were a thing. On Mana Island in Fiji, the natives just let the coconuts fall when they were ripe, and so no one had to go up to the top of the trees to harvest them. Some of the coconuts got collected by tourists, but I think that was okay, since food was included in the price for the resort.

I have a shirt that has pictures of palm trees with boys climbing the trees to collect the coconut, and so maybe children are sometimes used for this.

I do use coconut milk from Thailand, but not Chaokoh brand, as I do not want chunks of young coconut in the milk. From my understanding, Chaokoh coconut milk is really coconut water instead of coconut milk, and I do not buy that, except when the coconuts are local.

Young coconuts are used in several asian especially Thai dishes in restaurants that I have eaten at. They are not as strongly flavored as older more mature ones. I have been told but not purchased to verify that if you see coconuts still in their husks at grocery stores these are the younger ones. The size is normally much smaller than the ones that I used to purchase.

I was aware that trained monkeys are used to harvest coconuts and dont see why it is a problem unless they abuse the monkeys. Is it abuse to plow with horses or oxen? How about those diving birds used for fishing? Milking cows? chickens and eggs. Seeing eye dogs,

Patricia - Many of the PETA members think so.

"trained monkeys are used to harvest coconuts and dont see why it is a problem unless they abuse the monkeys."

The point is they DO abuse the monkeys! Seeing eye, guide or assistance dogs, dairy cows and most other livestock in western countries are treated humanely in most cases but this is not necessarily true in Asia and in third world countries.

I think PETA is an extremist organization and once was a domestic terrorist organization. Keep driving straight when they suggest taking a turn.

PETA isn't always wrong but it's sometimes far from right and removed from reality. It's out of place for people from the industrialized, modern world condemning what may be common in poor countries. A position may be morally right here but insisting on our preferences being followed elsewhere is political ethnocentristic. Choosing to not buy products that don't meet First World standards is fine. If that's what Target did, that's reasonable to me.

I think elephants are abused in Thailand also. I had heard about this but not about the monkeys.

This looks like cruelty to monkeys to me:

I would try and find a non-PETA video as it is not unknown for things are filmed for the drama and not for the goodness of the animal. I watched with horror a anti-grassland burning film where you could see the baby quail were in a glass enclosure being burned alive to make a point.

most other livestock in western countries are treated humanely in most cases but this is not necessarily true in Asia and in third world countries.

There are all sorts of stories about inhumane treatment of livestock in the U.S., stories about chickens being raised in tiny indoor cages for their entire lives and so on. I think there is a lot of room for improvement everywhere.

The economic incentive is the spoiler. By the way there is in fact plenty of exploitation of children including prostitution going on. With not a small amount of the customer base for child sex slaves in Asian countries being European tourists. After pop star Ricky Martin flew to Thailand a few years back to see what conditions were because of the tsunami that overwhelmed affected coastal communities he reported that pedophiles coming from outside the country were offering $10,000 apiece for orphaned infants.

Here's a non-PETA video:

PETA kills a truly shocking number of adoptable pets each year in order to save money to pull their stunts. They need to have several seats and hush.

https://blogs.duanemorris.com/animallawdevelopments/2020/11/05/peta-offers-unconvincing-defense-for-the-high-kill-rate-in-its-shelter/

I had heard about the monkey thing but I do not like coconut and therefore it won't affect my buying choices anyway. I do hope the monkeys turn en masse on their abusers one day.

Doesn't matter if a pet is adoptable if nobody does.

Last time I was at a shelter the inmates were all house cats - a lot of them - and elderly dogs.

Americans also put human family members in facilities when they get old.

As for cats a common source of disenchantment would be that they have too much personality - when I walked in the door of the shelter it was hilarious because there were uncaged cats all over the reception area. It was like the Star Trek episode The Trouble with Triffles.

Too much personality for a consumer culture that wants companion animals to be toys or accessories. As in Easter duckling syndrome.

Then there is animal hoarding. There used to be bird hoarder in the next suburban neighborhood south of where I lived for decades. Open sided cages stacked out in the back yard populated by an avian assortment that I suspect were never cleaned or covered - even in winter.

The smell was detectable some distance away.

In the rural area I live in now the arterial in and out of here goes past a place that has cattle, pigs, turkeys and whatever else standing around in churned up mud beneath a scattering of trees.

And a few open sided shelters.