Punch was born on July 25, 2025, at the Ichikawa Zoo in Japan. His mother, a female just 4 years old, rejected him after a difficult birth in the middle of a heat wave.
The keepers fed him by hand. They tried towels, a toy giraffe, until they found what worked: an orangutan plush toy that Punch clung to as if it were his own mother.
In January 2026, they returned him to the troop. It was not easy. Without a mother to guide him, Punch did not know how to approach the others.
But something began to change. Other macaques started grooming him. Someone saw him hugging a companion for the first time.
There were setbacks along the way. Once, he was attacked by another member of the group and ran to seek comfort in his usual plush toy.
Even so, he kept trying. By around March, he was using his old fabric companion less. He still slept with it, but during the day he preferred to be close to his own kind.
And the change was even more moving: Punch, who once needed a plush toy to feel accompanied, is now the one who warmly welcomes other macaques and approaches the youngest ones, hugging them and keeping them company.
“He has begun to integrate little by little”, said the zoo director, Shigekazu Mizushina.
No one chose Punch’s pain. But every day, he chose to keep looking for a place among the others. And now he seems to be helping others find theirs.