Two US nationals were arrested after one jumped into the enclosure of Punch, an internet-famous monkey at a Japanese zoo, while the other filmed the stunt on Sunday morning. Police said the men, who denied the allegations, were accused of forcible obstruction of business.
One of the men said he was a 24-year-old college student. The other said he was a 27-year-old singer. Police said no monkeys were injured, and zoo workers quickly apprehended the pair before they got close to the animals. Footage shared on social media showed a person wearing a costume and carrying a stuffed toy jumping over a fence and into the monkey enclosure. The costume was said to be promoting a cryptocurrency, and the person was later led out by a zookeeper.
The incident put fresh attention on Punch, a nine-month-old macaque who drew millions of views earlier this year after he was spotted hugging a stuffed toy orangutan given to him by keepers at Ichikawa City Zoo after he was rejected by his mother. Punch moved into the shared enclosure in January and initially struggled to bond with the other monkeys, but the zoo has recently shared updates showing him integrating with the other macaques.
On Monday, Ichikawa City Zoo said it had filed a damage report with police and was expanding the enclosure's viewing restriction area and installing intrusion prevention nets. It is also considering a full ban on filming around the monkey enclosure, while requests to film from YouTubers are temporarily on hold.
The case follows other incidents of people trespassing into zoo enclosures after animals became internet sensations. For Ichikawa City Zoo, the challenge now is not just keeping Punch safe, but deciding how much access the public should be allowed to have to the animal that made the zoo a global curiosity.
