Viral monkey Punch rejected by mother given stuffed orangutan
An abandoned baby monkey who broke the hearts of millions online after he was seen hugging the orangutan plush toy given to him in place of his mother has finally found peace among his own kind.
Punch, a young Japanese macaque at the Ichikawa City Zoo in Japan, went viral after videos showed him playing and drifting around with a soft toy given to him by zookeepers.
For the first few months of his life, he had difficulty bonding with the other monkeys at the zoo and had only the companionship of his human keepers and a stuffed toy to rely on. But recent videos show he’s turning things around. One monkey hugged him and he was seen grooming others, an important part of macaque socialization.
Matt Lovatt, manager of Trentham Monkey Forest in England, spoke to BBC Breakfast about Punch’s behaviour.
“It was great to see her start to be groomed, because that’s the main way that these primates can start to form friendships with the monkeys within their group,” said Lovatt, who oversees the welfare of Barbary macaques at a wildlife sanctuary near Stoke-on-Trent.
