Wild monkeys are captured in local forests and trained to pick coconuts in (monkey) schools. The schools largely train pig-tailed monkeys. After finishing the course of three months, sometimes extended to 6 months, each monkey learns the skills of coconut harvesters including how to spin a coconut off of the stem, how to fetch the fallen coconuts, how to load and unload coconuts into a vehicle, how to hand a worker coconuts to be peeled from their outer husks, how to load the peeled coconuts into a bag two at a time, and even how to help coil its own rope. Each monkey can pick about 700 to 1,000 coconuts a day. The skills save the owner considerable time and labor.
This is done on all the islands also in Malaysia.