Japan zoo may ban photos near viral monkey Punch after intrusion by 2 Americans

The zoo housing the viral Japanese macaque Punch said on Tuesday it is considering a complete ban on photography and filming around the monkey enclosure after two men were recently arrested over an intrusion incident.

The Ichikawa City Zoo in Chiba prefecture has already expanded the buffer zone around the enclosure and installed anti-intrusion netting following Sunday’s incident involving two men claiming to be US nationals.

The monkey went viral, attracting international attention, for clinging to an orangutan plushie after being abandoned by his mother.

Police on Tuesday sent to prosecutors the two men, who were arrested on suspicion of forcible obstruction of business. One of them is a 24-year-old claiming to be a university student and the other is a 27-year-old self-professed singer.

According to the allegations, the two men conspired to trespass into the zoo’s monkey enclosure at around 10.50am on Sunday. The younger man scaled a fence and dropped himself into the concrete enclosure dressed in a character costume while the older one filmed him with a smartphone from outside, police said.

Takashi Yasunaga, head of the Ichikawa municipal government’s zoological and botanical garden division, said the act endangered both the animal’s health and the safety of zookeepers.