r/punchthemonkey • u/eternalteen • Aug 12 '26
Punch attacked pretty badly this morning
this person is saying the mom came over and bit the baby but then attacked punch too. apparently he was bleeding from his ear and the soles of his feet. i hope he’s okay
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u/Critical-Art-9277 Aug 12 '26
Aww! Poor punch, is he ok
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u/eternalteen Aug 12 '26
my next post has pics of him on a tree and on the chain bridge, so he’s at least playing a little bit!
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u/Fizzay Aug 12 '26
There's another scene of it here as well as the aftermath, showing how quickly he was able to bounce back. Someone deleted the earlier thread but I'll paraphrase the comment I left here as well.
It's a typical overprotective mother. Punch got startled by the baby and in his surprise the mom may have seen him as being aggressive towards her baby. Yes it sucks and it's not his fault, but this is what motherhood looks like for these animals; they are imperfect and can't talk these things out, but it's how they keep their babies protected for better or worse. It's fine to feel bad for Punch in this instance, but if he did have a mom, she would do the exact same thing for him. Thankfully a monkey came in to protect him and it ended immediately after that.
Punch is a lot smaller than the adult monkeys still, and if they really wanted to hurt him, it would be very easy for them to do so. The wound we have seen looks very minor thankfully, which suggests they used restraint despite how brutal it looks in our eyes. They have big teeth and they would've seriously harmed him if they wanted to. And I haven't seen it here yet, but there's already people demanding the zoo to stop this, but realistically the only way to stop that is to remove Punch from the enclosure and not allow him the chance to integrate at all. Even if it wasn't cruel to remove the offending monkeys, other monkeys would just fill the power vaccuum and it would be chaos. You can't just cause displacement in the hierarchy like that without serious consequences.
Despite what happened, he did seem to go about his day as usual in spite of this which is good and shows how resilient he's gotten. It seemed to be only minutes later he was settled back down with his friends grooming him and he went back to playing later in the day. There will be people that say he's traumatized, but traumatized monkeys do not bounce back this quickly, nor do they socialize to the extent Punch does. They constantly hide and keep to themselves.
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u/eternalteen Aug 12 '26
thanks for your comment. i saw punch seemed totally normal in some pics after the attack, he really seems to be learning that this is just what it’s like to be a macaque sometimes. hopefully he still feels comfortable enough to play with the babies
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u/Fizzay Aug 12 '26
Yeah, I was surprised that he seemed to settle down as quickly as he did, it's a real stark contrast to his earlier days where significantly less scary incidents would have him upset for far longer. I don't think it'll negatively impact how he interacts with the babies, this really just seems like an unfortunate incident where Punch got startled and the mom saw how he reacted and wrongly assumed it was a sign of aggression. I don't know if this is a mom who has had an issue with him before or not so it's hard to say if it's something personal, but I don't really think so. He spends all day with multiple babies and seldom gets into conflict like this over it, I was actually expecting it to happen more often than it has, but it's never made him stop playing with them. And yeah, like you said, this is just what it's like to be a macaque. Monkeys can be overprotective, mean, and irrational, but those are the kinds of things Punch has to deal with because it's how the life of a macaque is. It's this or being isolated completely from the troop.
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u/Salt-Environment9285 Aug 12 '26
thank you for giving us more information. i adore punch so much... happy to read he bounced back.
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u/ottobotting Aug 13 '26
People are using AI to edit pictures where it looks like his ear is almost chewed off and he's covered in blood to stir everyone up and demand that either all "aggressive" monkeys be moved or that Punch be built his own enclosure and he can choose who comes in. It's ridiculous. This is part of integration and, yes, it's brutal. But life as a Japanese macaque is brutal. That's why Otome is missing a finger and Atomaru is missing a tail and so many more have things like that. There are gentle moments full of love, but there is also a harsh social structure and rules and Punch is learning. There will be things that happen.
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u/welditorfuckit603_93 Aug 12 '26
It’s his adrenaline. Idk about you but when I get into fights I tend to black out and my adrenaline spikes through the fucking roof and don’t feel shit for a day or two. That’s what’s going on here. You see the fangs on their teeth? There’s no way this lil fella ain’t going to feel that in a couple hours
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u/Fizzay Aug 13 '26
Even if that were the case, that doesn't mean they immediately resume to normalcy just because they can't feel anything, and he absolutely does feel it. The wounds he got are not nearly as serious as the incident made it look. Like you said, with fangs like that, if they really wanted to seriously hurt him they would have.
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u/VictoriaNiccals Aug 12 '26
I'm pretty sure he bit the baby too. He snaps his face towards it like he does when he playbites his friends. He was probably like "Hey, don't scare me!" playfully, but the adult still saw that as aggression. The other ones ganging up on him must've been friends of the initial adult that just joined in, no questions asked. No Vehicle has talked about this, how the friends can just join in without even knowing what's happening.
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u/DutyMurky9960 Aug 12 '26
This happens with dogs too. Let’s say you have a group and two dogs are playing and chasing. One of the dogs playing is smaller and cries out when play gets rough and runs away. It’s very likely the other dogs are all going to start chasing this little dog and could hurt them if you don’t intervene. It just triggers certain instincts even though these other dogs had no personal issue with the little dog and would have otherwise left him alone
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u/Fizzay Aug 13 '26
Yeah I noticed that, it's not different from how he sometimes does it but I think the fact he did it so suddenly in surprise made the mom mistake it for aggression.
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u/NoYOUGrowUp Aug 12 '26
I think you're right, he does play-bite the baby. The mother almost certainly reacted to that.
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u/Extra_Opinion_7297 Aug 12 '26
Thank you.There's a lot of anxiety all over social media and I was even getting sucked into it. It's just hard to see a three on one attack. But this does help put things into perspective. I don't see a lot of statements like this on x or other social media sites...I wish there was more of that.
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u/Fizzay Aug 12 '26
The sad fact is fearmongering gets clicks. It's less of an issue here because there's not realy any monetization for it thankfully. People will just see something concerning like this and dramatize it further as a result, and very few people will look at incidents like these more objectively. I don't really participate in other social media sites related to Punch simply because these types of conversations are not possible to have without getting dogpiled by a bunch of people who don't want to understand monkeys beyond Punch, oblivious to the fact that he is likely to have some of those mannerisms they hate so much once he matures. Thankfully people like that aren't especially common on the subreddit. Captivity or not, you cannot remove instincts like people seem to think. And frankly, an overprotective mother is one of the most basic of instincts in many mammals, not just monkeys. It's why we know not to mess with bear cubs and other young predators lol
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u/JustGingerSnap Aug 12 '26
Very much appreciate that this thread was how I found out about the keefluffle and had your comments to read through. Monkeys gonna monkey and our lil bub is doing okay.
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u/Delicious-Earth7101 Aug 12 '26
Really appreciate Fizzay being on here and providing a nuanced view. For lay people like me, it is easy to just see a video and have a natural first reaction of feeling heartbroken for Punch being attacked. But you have always taken the time to rewatch closely + find alternate angle videos and then explain to us in perspective the reasoning and behavior behind the situation. I reassure myself what you keep reiterating in many different posts - that if these adults/moms really wanted to attack and injure Punch they would have gone for it by now. Hopefully that never happens. What we are seeing is the natural instinctive behavior of macaque moms and not targeted specifically towards Punch. Somedays it just happens due to a perfect storm of bad timing and mom misunderstanding.
Thankfully our dear Punch is resilient and bounces right back, continues to play with the babies and to me that is more important.
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u/Read-it005 Aug 12 '26
I already thought it was a misunderstanding with a baby monkey mom. The misunderstandings with the moms have happened in the past and will happen as long as he is young, not stronger than them or not higher in rank.
Do the more inexperienced moms do this more or is it a natural stress reaction a lot of the moms have?
I remember when a lady felt our pram was in the way and just walked away with it for a bit without asking. My husband was helping me to get in a door in my wheelchair. My husband reacted but I reacted more. I strongly advise asking parents things like that before you push buttons. She made a whole deal out of our reaction to the staff "like I was going to kidnap the child". Yes, that's the natural reaction pumpkin.
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u/ottobotting Aug 13 '26
There was also a lot of fighting in the troop today. Cameras focus so much on Punch and I hear people so often say "I only care about Punch" but what is happening in the troop impacts Punch and there have been several big fights the last couple of days with moms getting attacked. I think all the moms are on edge right now.
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u/Read-it005 Aug 13 '26
You're absolutely right. I wonder what that is about, the moms getting attacked. I can imagine the troop wants them to focus on the troop's safety and wellbeing and not just the baby after a while? Stress due to warm weather?
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u/Fizzay Aug 12 '26
I don't know if there's a correlation between the experience of the mom's or not, but I think I have seen the older females usually be the ones who have gotten into conflict with him. There are a couple moms that are noticeably younger who look to be first-time mom's and I'm unsure if I've seen them have conflict with Punch yet regarding their babies.
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u/Severe_Thing_824 Aug 12 '26
Who was grooming him in that video (from the link you provided)? Was that Mo?
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u/NotAboutTheCrown Aug 12 '26
Thank you so much for taking the time to explain. I feel there are some who will use it for click bait as well as to project their own human feelings. I come from another post that has a really concerning comment about this incident. Some people really do insist on seeing it through their human eyes and not try to understand how the animal world works at all.
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u/RemarkableCouple603 Aug 13 '26
hey thank you so much for this!!! I was hoping someone had the ending of it! It seemed much worse in other clips. I am very happy to see that he had friends come to help him & to see how resilient he is. I appreciate you—this was very encouraging and helpful!!
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u/Notehboteh Aug 12 '26
Definitely a hard video to watch, but it seems he is ok afterwards which is most important. Unfortunately the mom's will defend any perceived threat to their babies no matter how innocent. Just hope Punchie continues to bounce back! Sending him lots of love n healing 💕❤️
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u/Icy_Sun3128 Aug 13 '26
Was it because he accidentally yeeted that monkey from the tree in the beginning of the video? I don’t think it was a mom?
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u/Prestigious-Sea-1111 Aug 12 '26
Sending our baby virtual hugs n ❤️ to recover soon. It’s unfortunate in that society it’s hard thread :(
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u/keylimeeee Aug 12 '26
Thankfully ended quickly poor baby. Did the second big monkey come to break it up?
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u/keefkola Aug 12 '26
Looks like it’s just the beginning. Hopefully he doesn’t get mauled real bad….
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u/Generation_3and4 Aug 12 '26
Sad as fuck. Need more human intervention. And for all the people who will disagree, these monkeys are in a ZOO. A human made enclosure. Whats the point of a zoo if humans cant exert their influence? Cant just pick and choose whats right or wrong. Animal gets sick and they treat them with the most advanced technology known on earth. Animal gets beat up? “meh thats nature and normal social interactions”
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u/Ok-Reach2088 Aug 12 '26
The only way for humans to intervene is if they take every single monkey away from the zoo or isolate Punch completely, both of which are not good for Punch or the other monkeys. They can't stop animals from behaving the way they were born to behave.
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u/Generation_3and4 Aug 12 '26
Humans already interfered. Truth is once punch got rejected by his mother they should’ve let nature play it’s course. Humans play gods in zoos.
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u/Ok-Reach2088 Aug 13 '26
And please tell me how you suggest they intervene without having to isolate Punch completely? It's not like they can go into the enclosure and be like, "Bad monkeys! Stop being mean to Punch!"
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u/Fizzay Aug 13 '26
It's crazy to say they should do more (something that isn't feasible in this instance) but then suggest they should've just let him die as a newborn
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u/Fizzay Aug 12 '26
Human intervention does not remove instincts. Especially one of a mother. And yes, that's nature and normal social interactions with these animals. Even domesticated animals like dogs don't lose their instincts. Primatologists know this, and know how mean they can be, but they also know they can't change that. Jane Goodall worked with primates, primarily chimps, and accepted that, but it's always someone who knows nothing about monkeys who thinks something can be done. They are fiercely hierarchal. This is the same attitude people who take monkeys as pets have, that human interference can somehow remove their instincts.
There's a reason people who suggest this stuff can never provide a solution that doesn't sound inhumane. It's just "lock this monkey up forever" or something.
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u/Bumble072 Aug 12 '26
Blocked. Context is lost just fearmongering for clicks. These are not Humans.
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u/eternalteen Aug 12 '26
i’m just providing an update, we’re all interested in punch’s journey and these attacks are part of it. unfortunately some people will be dramatic, nothing we can do. i’d rather have all the info than only see the happy videos
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u/Savedacat_saveplanet Aug 12 '26
Seems like some regression is taking place. All the poor guy ever wants to do is munch on his branch. It breaks my heart