{"id":316491,"date":"2026-03-06T20:01:21","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T20:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/316491\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T20:01:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T20:01:21","slug":"japanese-zoo-confirms-breakthrough-for-punch-the-monkey-after-abandonment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/316491\/","title":{"rendered":"Japanese zoo confirms breakthrough for Punch the monkey after abandonment"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Punch, an abandoned baby macaque,<\/a> who found comfort in an orangutan plushie<\/a> after being rejected by his mother and other monkeys, now appears to be outgrowing his beloved toy<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Images of Punch dragging around the toy<\/a> bigger than him drew attention to the residents of a zoo near Tokyo<\/a>. <\/p>\n

When other monkeys shunned the infant, Punch rushed back to the toy orangutan, hugging it for comfort.<\/p>\n

But he’s been using the toy less. <\/p>\n

On a recent day, Punch was seen climbing on the back of another monkey, sitting with adults and sometimes getting groomed or hugged.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was good to see him grow, and I\u2019m reassured,\u201d said Sanae Izumi, a 61-year-old Punch fan from Osaka<\/a> who came to the zoo because she was worried about the baby monkey.<\/p>\n

\"Punch,<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

Punch, right, sits with others in the monkeys’ playground at the Ichikawa city zoo (AP)<\/p>\n

Punch was abandoned by his mother after his birth, presumably because of exhaustion. <\/p>\n

Zookeepers nursed him and gave him the toy to train him to cling, an ability newborn macaques need to survive.<\/p>\n

\u201cHelping Punch learn the rules of monkey society and being accepted as a member is our most important task,\u201d said Kosuke Kano, a 24-year-old zookeeper. <\/p>\n

\"Punch<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

Punch is a Japanese macaque born on July 26, 2025 (AP)<\/p>\n

Punch was so popular after images of him and his toy showed up online last month, the zoo had to set rules to make visitors be quiet and to limit viewing to 10 minutes to reduce stress for the more than 50 other monkeys.<\/p>\n

Punch eschewing the toy most of the time now is a good thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen he grows out of the plush toy that encourages his independence, and that\u2019s what we are hoping for,\u201d zoo director Shigekazu Mizushina said.<\/p>\n

Punch still sleeps with his toy every night, but Mizushina said the next thing keepers want to see is Punch bunched up with other monkeys to sleep.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":316492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[111,139,69,147,406],"class_list":["post-316491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}