On Wednesday, the
As the news made headlines around the world and in Japan the zoo offered an apology on national TV and on their website. A park employee said that they didn't mean anything by it and that they believed that because the general public voted for the name there wouldn't be any trouble.
But over 500 people contacted the monkey zoo protesting the name and demanded that they drop it. A zoologist said "The complaints we received were mostly about offending the British Royal Family and how would the Japanese feel if a British Zoo named a monkey after the Japanese Imperial Family". However, soon after receiving the complaints, the zoo started to get calls and emails in support of keeping name Charlotte. Some of the emails said that it was okay to keep the name because the monkey was very cute.
The Japanese national television and Oita Prefectural Government even asked the opinion of the British Embassy, but they offered no real comment. They did say, however, that the zoo had the choice of choosing whatever name it desired.
For the last two days, the zoo held talks behind closed doors on whether to keep the name or not, but Mr. Kiichiro Sato, the local Mayor of Oita Prefecture, ended the talks by stating a no name change. "I think the general public gave the baby monkey a very pretty name and I personally don't think there is any problem, so we will keep the name, Charlotte."
Every year, the zoo asks the general public to vote on the name of the first macaque monkey to be born. The name that gets the highest vote is chosen as the name of the new baby monkey. This year's vote collected a total of 853 with over 85 votes counted towards the name "Charlotte" after the British princess.
