State broadcaster CCTV on Wednesday showed footage shot in the city of Yichun in east China's Jiangxi Province of the baby monkey holding a black goat’s neck tightly, as it walked by a river and munched on leaves. The monkey looked comfortable and happy.
Goat farmer Zhong Shu says that he found the small monkey when tending his goats on Saturday.
"The little monkey has been here for about four or five days. It seems the goats made it feel safe. Every time I came to shut goats in the fold at night, I found the monkey was on the back of this goat. I tried to feed bananas to the monkey, but it did not take them and held on the goat tightly," The South China Morning Post quotes him as saying.
Zhong said that the monkey clings to the back of one of the goats when they go out to forage during the day and returns to the fold to sleep with them at night. He said the animals are inseparable as if the monkey had decided the goat was its mother.
Local wildlife protection authorities are preparing to break up the happy family though, they will first send the monkey to the local zoo before releasing it into the wild, according to CCTV.
