Don’t shoot! Wild animals in Yadoriki Water Source Forest やどりき水源林

This Year, acorns are scarce all over Japan. Bears (Asian black bears) which make nuts their staple food are starved. They come near human communities for food. In the countryside, there are chestnuts and persimmons et al for garden. Such houses often have a dweller of octogenarian grandma or grandpa, alone. They cannot take care of their orchard by themselves anymore. Hungry bears visit such food pantries with ease. Also, bad mannered homo sapience leaves around their house garbage containing rice balls, veggie remnants or fried chicken legs, not only in countryside but also downtowns. Media is busy discussing emerging “Urban Bears” which come the middle of downtowns to forage garbage bins. They even learn to open the entrance door and fridge in kitchen. Inevitably, many people meet bears, even at bus stops. Both, bear and human, panicked. Bears waved around their mighty arms (er, legs, I mean) to fight. Unlucky humans were seriously injured, or killed. Sad stories … Worse. Mild winter may disturb bears’ hybernation. Some are said to be roaming forest still in the end of December.

Even in the parks of Yokohama,
we can find only a small amount of acorns.
The place for this photo has been regularly covered
with acorns in late autumn to early winter.
This December, only the ground is bare ...

So far, very luckily, such incidences are not rerpoted in Kanagawa Prefecture. For one thing, the estimated population of bear in Kanagawa is around 40. The valuation makes the animal an endangered species in Kanagawa. Still, these days we‘re wearing bells (yep, plural) in Tanzawa 丹沢. “Hello bears and the other animals! We’re visiting your place without any intention to harm. Please let us pass peacefully.” Having said that, it’s not common to find traces of wild animals, other than deer, boar, and flying squirrel, in Kanagawa’s forests. Probably it is more desirable state of the things if we can meet more at least the evidence of animal existence in forests …

The entrance of the tree hole is very smooth,
 i.e. flying squirrels used the place.

Then, this summer, several forest instructors encountered a Japanese badger in Yadoriki Water Source Forest やどりき水源林. At the beginning, one instructor found a hole dug into a gentle slope near the open space where more than 300 people congregate sometimes. Few weeks later, another foerest instructors met a budger resting beneath wooden folding benches stored in a corner of the open space. Both the budger and humans were agitated. The cute animal dashed out of the folded legs of benches, and disappeard in the forest near-by. News! Why not search more traces of wild animals in the water source forest?

The hole where an instructor encountered a Japanese badger.
 Unfortunately, since then,
no one saw the trace of animal from here ...
Maybe the place would never be reused.
 Cautious animal.

Finding traces of deer and boar is easy in Tanzawa. Yeah, decade back, deer population exploded in Tanzawa and their eating habit was destroying the ecosystem (; my post on July 14, 2017). Now the population is heading to the direction of decrease, thanks to the efforts of hunters and builders of fences blocking the access for tender forest leaves by deer (; the 2021 data can be found here). Yet, finding droppings of deer is still boringly easy when we hike in Tanzawa. Also near human settlements, it’s not so rare to witness ground uprooted wildly which is the evidence a boar came here to find ground worms for lunch. Then what about the other animals? That’s the question we forest instructors one day had, and decided to enter wild kingdom off the trekking roads.

The ground looks like stamped by deer ...

Deer fence … but is it working?

When we hike, we can sometimes recognize animal trails departing from the human road. So, we simply decided to trace them, hoping to encounter something for the sign of wild animals’ existence. I tell you it was not at all easy. On a steep slope, it looked easy to take a path made by some animal going up or down. Once we bipedal animal tried to take the same way, the soil is crumbling beneath our foot. It was not practical to stabilize our body only with two feet. We ended up with on-all-fours and proceeded just like four-legged creatures. One senior instructor murmured “huh … animals are great.” Agreed. Such road sometimes leaded us to a bush where tall grasses and shrubs blocked our way completely. “Er, well, racoon dogs are not so big like us.” “Yeah, probably smaller ones passed through this space near the roots and went ahead.” There, we must have been looked like caged animal trapped behind the bars of shrubs … “This hole might be usable for a temporary resting place for a badger.” “Hmmmm, but not for their sleeping, I guess.” We exchanged such conversations for hours around the forestry road and gave up. “Next time, let us depart more from the forestry road and see what we can find ...” Meanwhile, several times, we could hear gunshots somewhere from the west. Hunters. Woooooooo.

An animal trail going up almost vertically.

The cavity looked good for a temporary stay.
 But too small to make it a house.

How about here?

Any hole over there?

Droppings of Japanese martine

When we escaped from the bush cages, and reached the entrance gate of Yadoriki Water Source Forest, there was a group of hunters busy preparing for concluding their activity. Thet said, “We got 6 deer. Not many. We’re waiting for the crew with hunting dogs to return.” “It’s not a good day. We could have more games.” “Yep.” We forest instructors realized we were doing rather risky thing, crawling in the bush. If these hunters thought we had been their prey, what happened …? “Let’s wear a neon-colored vest next time.” “YES!” It’s the take-away forest instructors had from the field study on that day. Safe hiking, mate.

Hunters were waiting …

A feather of Japanese green woodpecker
we found on that day.

If you find 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

You can send an enquiry to them by clicking the bottom line of their homepage at http://www.pref.kanagawa.jp/div/1644/