Punch was born on July 26, 2025, at Ichikawa Zoo near Tokyo, and his mother abandoned him hours later, exhausted after giving birth. Caretakers hand-fed him and gave him a stuffed orangutan toy to cling to, just as a newborn macaque would cling to its mother.
When he was finally able to join the group in January, images of Punch dragging his stuffed companion went viral and attracted thousands of visitors—so many that the zoo had to limit visits to 10 minutes to avoid stressing the more than 50 monkeys in the troop.
One year later, Punch lives among more than 60 monkeys on Monkey Mountain, now lets the adults pet and hug him, and relies less and less on his stuffed toy, although he still sleeps with it every night. His fans sent him more than 2,500 birthday cards and even funded air conditioning so the troop can withstand the Japanese summer. “He is very healthy, and we are happy that he has already turned one”, said the zoo director, Takashi Yasunaga.
