{"id":495471,"date":"2026-02-21T21:47:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T21:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/495471\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T21:47:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T21:47:11","slug":"punch-the-baby-macaque-draws-a-crowd-at-japans-ichikawa-city-zoo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/495471\/","title":{"rendered":"Punch the baby macaque draws a crowd at Japan’s Ichikawa City Zoo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dozens of fans have flocked to a Japanese zoo to catch a glimpse of a baby macaque who shot to social media stardom months after being abandoned by his mother.<\/p>\n

Six-month-old Punch became an internet sensation after footage of him clinging forlornly to zookeepers and dragging around a stuffed orangutan toy was widely shared on X.<\/p>\n

Punch’s mother, perhaps due to it being her first litter or reduced stamina from the summer heat, showed no interest in caring for her young, the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reported.<\/p>\n

Japanese baby macaques cling to their mothers to feel safe and to build up their muscles.<\/p>\n

The zoo looked for an alternative, such as a towel or different soft toy, but Punch chose the long-legged orangutan.<\/p>\n

“It was easy for him to grab,” a zookeeper told Fuji TV.<\/p>\n

“Maybe he also liked (that) it looked like a monkey.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Punch hs been dragging around his soft toy companion for months. (Reuters: Kim Kyung-Hoon)<\/p>\n

Punch’s predicament sparked sympathy online, spawning a devoted fanbase who began posting updates on the monkey under the hashtag #HangInTherePunch.<\/p>\n

The baby monkey was raised in an artificial environment after being born in July, and began training to rejoin his troop last month.<\/p>\n

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”.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Ichikawa City Zoo staff have been working to integrate Punch into the broader troop.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 (Reuters: Kim Kyung-Hoon)<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“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.<\/p>\n

The couple said they found social media posts of Punch carrying around the soft toy “adorable”.<\/p>\n

Another visitor, who gave her name as Yoko, said: “He’s so cute, so I had to come see him.”<\/p>\n

“I studied his pictures in advance so that I could recognise him,” the 50-year-old told AFP.<\/p>\n

“It makes me a little sad he’s growing so fast, but I’m relieved to see he’s making friends.”<\/p>\n

\"People<\/p>\n

Space was at a premium as fans of the macaque flocked to the zoo on Friday. (Reuters: Kim Kyung-Hoon)<\/p>\n

Some fans, however, were worried by a widely shared video showing Punch being dragged by an adult monkey.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“While Punch is scolded (by other monkeys), he shows mental strength and resilience,” it said.<\/p>\n

AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dozens of fans have flocked to a Japanese zoo to catch a glimpse of a baby macaque who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":495472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[249683,1313,64,63,249681,22103,941,117813,117811,106706,249682,249680,128,338],"class_list":{"0":"post-495471","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-hangintherepunch","9":"tag-animals","10":"tag-au","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-baby-macaque","13":"tag-good-news","14":"tag-japan","15":"tag-macaque","16":"tag-monkey","17":"tag-punch","18":"tag-punch-the-baby-macaque","19":"tag-punch-the-monkey","20":"tag-science","21":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}