We often hear the story that the monkeys are obtained from the wild. The story goes that a mother monkey is shot, and the hunters take the baby from her dead body and sell it. The reason is that only young monkeys can be trained. This is not correct. A baby monkey holds its mother very tight. You must be a very good hunter to be able to shoot only the mother, without hurting the baby. Furthermore, if you are able to do this, and you have killed the mother, you must then kill nearly all monkeys in the pack, as the dead mother and her baby will be protected by all other monkeys in the group.
We have students of all ages, sometimes even 6 or 7 years old. And that is no problem.
According to Thai law, it is not allowed to keep monkeys, except when you keep the monkey for the collection from coconuts you are allowed to own one. When you own a monkey for coconut collection, the monkey is registered. It has a microchip implanted, and the parents must be known, and also registered.