Baby monkey Punch warms hearts in Japan

Punch-Kun, a tiny macaque monkey, is drawing thousands of additional winter visitors to Ichikawa zoo in Japan, where he was born last July.

This luckless macaque, known simply as Punch, was abandoned by his mother shortly after she'd given birth to him during a heatwave. Zookeepers then bottle-fed him until he'd gained the independence to return to the troop.

However, shunned, beaten and bullied by the other snow monkeys, Punch began to show signs of anxiety due to his social isolation. To help him with the transition, his keepers provided him an orangutan cuddly toy.

Videos quickly went viral of Punch clinging to his toy as a surrogate mother and dragging it everywhere with him. The hashtag #HangInTherePunch trended, and major news channels broadcast Punch's story.

Fascination with him stretches far beyond the virtual world. While in the winter months, Ichikawa zoo typically welcomes 100 to 200 visitors a day, that number's rocketed to between 2,000 and 3,000! Many of them are visitors from abroad, like Jon Frigillana from the USA.

Jon Frigillana: "We didn't fly to Japan all the way just for Punch. But, you know, he's been making the headlines. His story is cute, and we just wanted to see him."

With Punch gradually gaining confidence and the group warming to him, things are finally looking up. There are even reports that one macaque, Momo-Chan, with whom he's often seen playing, might be a romantic interest.

In a world overflowing with bad news, Punch's tale is a meaningful lesson, according to Viviane Oliveira, visiting from Brazil.

Viviane Oliveira: "Yeah, I think he really represents, like, the sense of hope. Because it doesn't matter where you are, you know, there's always hope. You know, he was facing a hard time. But it doesn't mean - when you're facing hard time, it doesn't mean that we're going to be like that forever. View Less