Baby Monkey Punch finds comfort with peers after hugging stuffed orangutan
Published by RawNews1st
Punch, the young Japanese macaque at the Ichikawa City Zoo, went viral after videos showed him clutching a stuffed orangutan given to him as a substitute for his mother. The baby monkey punch moment drew global attention because Punch had been abandoned and, until recently, relied on human keepers and the soft toy for comfort.
Punch was abandoned and was seen hugging an orangutan stuffed toy that zookeepers gave him as a substitute for his mother. During the first few months of his life, he struggled to bond with the other monkeys in his zoo’s enclosure and had only the company of his human keepers and the stuffed toy to rely on.
His situation began looking up this month when zookeepers at Ichikawa City Zoo, near Tokyo, posted that he was gradually integrating, including “playfully poking others and getting scolded”.
On Friday, more than 100 visitors gathered around the zoo’s monkey enclosure, straining to take photos and shouting “hang in there!” as Punch tried to approach others in the troop.
“We’re here since this morning. We rarely come to a zoo but we wanted to see cute Punch,” said 32-year-old Sayaka Takimoto, who drove two hours with her husband to see the monkey.
The couple said they found social media posts of Punch carrying around the soft toy “adorable”.
Another visitor, who gave her name as Yoko, said: “He’s so cute, so I had to come see him.”
“I studied his pictures in advance so that I could recognise him,” the 50-year-old told AFP.
“It makes me a little sad he’s growing so fast, but I’m relieved to see he’s making friends.”
Some fans, however, were worried by a widely shared video showing Punch being dragged by an adult monkey.
The zoo issued a statement on Friday asking them to “support Punch’s efforts” to socialise as his troop has not shown any serious aggression.
