In May 2019, there was an alert issued by the Prefectural Office for Yadoriki Water Source Forest やどりき水源林. It was about a bear. On May 10, 2019, it was sighted feces of an Asian black bear (Ursus thibetanus) and cedar trees whose barks where stripped probably by the same species, with scratches and bites. Photos were circulated among Kanagawa Forest Instructors. One photo was for a denuded cypress tree with vivid scars. Another was poops, gigantic ones, which were typical of bears. The incident was recorded very near to the admin office of Yadoriki Water Source Forest. “Come to think of it, there was a sighting of a cub in Ameyama Pass 雨山峠 last fall.” “Yes, yes.” “There is another cedar, withered due to peel-off by a bear in Ushirozawa Stream 後沢 near a warehouse.” “Indeed …” Senior instructors emailed us a notice “Please be careful. Carry precautionary bear bells in order to avoid unfortunate encounter.” Certainly. So, we are now ringing bells when we enter Yadoriki Forest. It’s, I would say, noisy. Yeah, that’s the point of bear bells. But how about bird-watching in Yadoriki? The sounds of bells disperse birds whose chirping could normally be heard.
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| Ring, ring, ring … |
2 weeks later, when we did thinning of cypresses in Yadoriki Forest, we met another large denuding of two trees by a bear. According to my seniors, those scars showed the bear “hugged” the tree and bit off the barks in order to lick molasses. “Look. This upper part has its tooth mark, and lower than these is its scratches.” “You know, now, the season of acorns has long gone. They are hungry.” Hmmmmmm. I’ve found this site of a professional photographer pondering relations between bark stripping by bears and health of afforested places. He hypothesizes bears are good at finding trees of increased circulation in sugary syrup. A tree does so when it’s not in a good health, like we crave for junk food when we’re exhausted ... So, when bears denude trees here and there in a forest, it could be a sort of indicator about the situation of trees, he says … Yeah. We have to admit we’re late in thinning for a healthy afforested forest. Congestion could make each cypress weaker than otherwise. Bears can smell the “blood” due to our neglect … Meanwhile, we hear many news about encounters between humans and wild animals. In Yamaguchi Prefecture 山口県, near Hiroshima, bears come to congested town nowadays (news from here). One evening late May this year in Iwakuni City 岩国市, a lady came home and found an adult bear of 1 m tall tried to open the door of her front entrance. (Yap, the city is where the US Marine stations.) Woooooooooooow. Something is happening in Japanese forests. I myself feel more close-encounters with wild animals these days, comparing with my kid-days decades ago … Or, is it simply because of my ignorance?
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| It’s a bite, I guess. |
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| Scratches. I think s/he was so excited to have syrup and attacked the tree with strong claws intensely. |
In Yadoriki, one day, we found a drowning Japanese field mouse (Apodemus speciosus) in a toilet. Oh dear … poor guy (?). One thing for sure is, we humans have entered deep in nature and made marks of our existence, like modern toilets. From animals’ point of view, they lived there for centuries, and we are new-comers disrupting their lives. One morning that Yadoriki’s toilet became a shelter for a horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus ferrumequinum). When we found it, we were quite excited. “Wow, what is it?” “It’s large!” “Camera, camera, camera!” The animal must have slept deep, but was got up by commotion below. It bent backwards as much as possible (“Wow, how flexible!”) and opened its mouth many times. (“Cute!”) We could not hear any screech, but the animal must have emitted human-inaudible ultrasound, saying “Hey, I’m sleeping! What are you guys doing there? What time you think is it now!?” Oh so self-centered humans.
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| Oh so poor mouse … |
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| The bat. It really looked cute … |
One spring day, I had a chance to enter deep in Yadoriki Forest to the direction of a ridge way from Yadoriki Community 寄 to Mt. Nabewari 鍋割山 (ASL 1272.4m). On our way, about ASL 800m point, there is a relatively horizontal space that has two wallows. It’s very strange to find such thing away from the valley … The place is strangely flat after very steep climbing, and has a sort of peculiar atmosphere. We were looking for colonies of wild Calanthe discolor our senior forest instructors found 2 years ago, and crisscrossing the space. The smell of animal is intense although we cannot see any large moving creature. Because of this smell, or not, I could feel indications of mammals filling the space. Perhaps, they were watching us meandering in their domain. “Huh, that rude two-legged creatures searching something in our bathroom!” The place is in less than one hour climb from the forestry road. It’s amazing to find such wild realm so near from human places. It would just be we are too arrogant and ignorant not to be conscious of our neighbor next door in a forest … So sorry for our cluelessness.
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| A
wallow. Though there was no water then, the soil was still wet. |
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| A footprint of deer? Serow? Boar? |
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| This is what we were looking for. |
Then, the other day, when we did our normal forestry activities in Niiharu, an animal jumped out in front of us, and ran up high on a tree next to the trekking road. “What!?” “What is it?” “Cat?” We took a photo and did a research. We concluded it was a masked palm civet (Paguma larvata). The species is good at climbing up trees, and so it jumped around the trees in Niiharu. Japanese have not found fossils for Masked palm civets in our territory. Also, the spread of this animal is not continuous in the archipelago. On the other hand, their Mitochondria DNA is identical with 2 groups of civet native to Taiwan. Ministry of Environment considers they are probably foreign species came to Japan relatively recently. One theory says they were brought in during the 19th century in order to harvest fur. The City of Yokohama recognizes several damages they can cause for houses and farms. Mountain of their poops in a garret with horrible smells. Bitten fruits scattered around in a commercial orchard. … Here is another vista of our naïveté with wild animals. They are always very near from us. Oh, yeah.
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| Niiharu’s masked palm civet |
If you find an environmental issues
in Kanagawa Prefecture, please make a contact with Kanagawa Natural Environment Conservation Center 神奈川県自然環境保全センター
657 Nanasawa, Atsugi City, 243-0121 〒243－0121 厚木市七沢657
Phone: 046-248-0323
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