Two US nationals were arrested after one of them jumped into the enclosure of Punch, an internet-famous monkey at a Japanese zoo, while the other filmed the stunt. The men were detained on suspicion of forcible obstruction of business after the incident at Ichikawa City Zoo on Sunday morning.
One of the men said he was a 24-year-old college student and is accused of scaling a fence to get into Punch's enclosure. The other identified himself as a 27-year-old singer. Both denied the allegations, local media said.
Footage shared on social media showed a person in a costume carrying a stuffed toy as he jumped over a fence into the monkey enclosure. The costume was said to be promoting a cryptocurrency. A zookeeper led the person back out, and an Ichikawa Police official said the men did not get close to the animals and were quickly apprehended by zoo workers. Police also said no monkeys were injured.
Ichikawa City Zoo said on Monday that it had filed a damage report with police and was putting countermeasures in place to prevent another incident. Those steps include expanding the enclosure's viewing restriction area and installing intrusion prevention nets. The zoo is also considering a full ban on filming around the monkey enclosure, and requests from YouTubers to film are temporarily on hold.
The arrest puts a spotlight back on Punch, the nine-month-old macaque whose rise to online fame began after he was rejected by his mother and given a stuffed toy orangutan by keepers. He moved into the shared enclosure in January, and the zoo said he initially struggled to bond with the other monkeys before recent updates showed him integrating with them.
The case follows a pattern that zoo officials say is becoming familiar: people trespassing into animal enclosures after the animals become internet sensations. Last month, a man was fined $300 for breaking into the enclosure of Moo Deng at a zoo in Thailand. For Ichikawa City Zoo, the latest stunt is less about a viral clip than a security problem it now has to solve before the next crowd tries the same thing.
