Punchthemonkey gets thousands of birthday messages as he turns 1

Punch, the orphaned monkey at a Japanese zoo that stole many people’s hearts by clinging to an orangutan plushie, is marking his first birthday with a flood of well-wishing messages from his fans around the world — even though he now has friends and is no longer holding on to the toy.Punch was abandoned by his mother after his birth a year ago Sunday, presumably because of exhaustion.Zookeepers nursed him and gave him the toy to develop his gripping ability, something newborn macaques need to survive.Punch is no longer a plump baby with the plushie and he’s hard to distinguish from other monkeys as he mingles and plays with them at an enclosure at the Ichikawa City Zoological and Botanical Garden.He still attracts big crowds, and has received some 2,500 birthday cards from inside and outside Japan, said Takashi Yasunaga, head of the zoo.Many of the cards and other messages fill the walls at an indoor Punch birthday exhibit where visitors can also view video chronicling Punch from his earliest days.“As Punch was trying very hard struggling to live each day, his two keepers did everything they can while other staff watched over him,” Yasunaga said, recalling the past year.“It was extremely hot when Punch was born.The memory is still clear to me as the hot season returns.”In mid-January, after six months of special care by his keepers, Punch was placed into the zoo’s monkey enclosure to join some 50 other monkeys — a challenge that led to his fame.In February, images of Punch with his toy posted by the zoo on social media immediately became a sensation and drove tens of thousand of visitors to the zoo, half of them from overseas, Yasunaga said.When other monkeys shooed the baby away, Punch rushed back to the toy orangutan, hugging it for comfort.

Fans cheered him with a #HangInTherePunch tag on social media.It was not just the cuteness factor of seeing Punch with his toy, but also his lone struggle to be gradually accepted by others that struck a cho...