What is orangutan boxing? When PETA released a strong statement condemning this act of animal cruelty

Orangutan boxing is an act of animal cruelty that occasionally goes viral on social media.

That's something that PETA was forced to warn about over a decade ago. Over the last few decades, the trend of orangutans fighting has become somewhat commonplace depending on the type of world that you're in.

In Thailand especially, and other countries in the region, the two orangutans will box one another at circuses or zoos. Seeing as how they are animals who have no control over the situation, it's incredibly sad and wrong to force them to fight each other.

To make matters worse, the thing is generally turned into a joke. Female Orangutans are forced to stand around the ring, with a referee typically in the ring to "control" the situation. Over a decade ago, videos began popping up showing the activity. That quickly caused PETA to release a statement about the animal's boxing.

In 2010, PETA released a scathing statement on the cruelty that happens in orangutan boxing and with the animals competing. A segment of the strongly-worded statement read:

"As if imprisoning hundreds of animals in cages and tanks that deprive them of everything that is natural and important to them weren’t enough cruelty for one theme park, Bangkok’s Safari World forces male orangutans to partake in dangerous boxing matches while female orangutans wearing bikinis display the round number... Please also take a moment to write to the ambassador of Thailand to your country and ask that he or she do everything possible to intervene for all Thai animals."

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Orangutan Boxing: Is it still around today?

Sadly yes, Orangutan boxing is still around today in different parts of the world.

While countries such as the United States do have some animal rights in place, they're not exactly in the majority. Around the world, there's still a massive lack of support and protection for them.

With that being the case, PETA's statement against the sport and its rise did little to stop it over a decade ago. Orangutans are still forced to fight one another in places around the world such as Cambodia and Thailand in the circus.