The Mournful Ballad Of Punch The Monkey

When I first heard rumblings that the world had assembled a conclave to elect a new celebrity zoo animal, I felt preemptively wary, partly due to world events and partly because we still don't know the long-term psychological consequences of fame for child stars like Moo Deng. Then I saw a video of the seven-month-old Japanese macaque Punch dragging his Djungelskog IKEA orangutan toy, and instantly felt my heart swell. It is difficult, I fear, to stave off the pangs of emotion that come when watching a baby monkey—a primate just like us—appear totally alone, clinging to a stuffed toy while he watches the other inhabitants of his enclosure hold and groom each other. When I watched videos of Punch dragging his Djungelskog to yet another empty corner, I felt impossibly sad.

This sorrowful saga has traveled far and wide. When Punch-kun the Japanese macaque was born in July in the Ichikawa City Zoo, his mother abandoned him. This sounds cruel, but it is known to happen under certain circumstances. In this case, she was a first-time mother who gave birth during a heat wave, making for a stressful labor. "In environments where survival is threatened from outside stress, mothers may prioritize their own health and future reproduction rather than continue to care for an infant whose health may be compromised by those environmental conditions," Alison Behie, a primatology expert at Australian National University, told The Guardian.

Without a mother, Punch needed someone, or something, to which he could attach. As Ichikawa City zookeeper Kosuke Shikano told The Guardian, baby Japanese macaques cling to their mothers after birth, both to build muscle strength and to feel a sense of security. But Punch, left alone, had no one to hold. After the keepers attempted to give him several towels, they offered him the Djungelskog, which had the added benefit of looking like a monkey. Punch immediately attached.