This is the heart-wrenching moment a hapless baby monkey was rescued after a fishing hook pierced her tongue while she was foraging for food.

Locals noticed the little primate crying in pain outside a market in Lopburi, central Thailand last Saturday (June 22).

Patiphan and Suthip Thantiwong, a kindhearted couple who loves to rescue wild monkeys, were told about the animal and arrived to help.

The one-year-old monkey was found with the hook going through her tongue while her body was entangled with fishing wire. The couple approached the wild monkey and brought her to their home to help her.

They said the monkey had been climbing on the back of a truck cab to get some food when it became tangled in fishing equipment.

Footage shows how Patiphan was holding the baby monkey while his wife was using pliers to carefully remove the steel hook, because they were concerned that it could rip her tongue.

It took about half an hour to finally remove the large fishing hook. The couple then took the baby back to her wild monkey family as she was stable and healthy.

Suthip said that many monkeys were injured while looking for food in the province but this was the first time she had seen the monkey was injured by a fishing hook.

She said: “The hook seems to have stuck in her mouth when she was trying to get food. Luckily, she didn’t swallow it.

“Lopburi is known as the monkey city, so there are monkeys everywhere. Tourists should keep food and valuable things very carefully because monkeys may cause damage to your belongings or sometimes they can be harmful to the animals too.”