Japanese sniper: Wild life and ecological restoration in Kanagawa Prefecture

Could you figure out footprints here?

In 1993, Kanagawa prefecture initiated a 3 year project to collect environmental data in Tanzawa-Oyama Quasi-National Park 丹沢大山国定公園. This was the first scientific and comprehensive monitoring for deer problem in Japan, and became the basis of 180° turn of Japanese policy for wild animals. For tackling the problem I told you last week, the 1993-1996 study recommended the prefecture to systematize coordinated policy among prefectural bureaus for tourism, primary industries, and environment. Following the proposal, the prefecture made in 1999 the Conservation Plan for Tanzawa-Oyama Area 丹沢大山保全計画 which is the blueprint for the currently ongoing efforts to tackle the ecological problems in Kanagawa. Next year in 2000, Kanagawa Nature Conservation Center 神奈川県自然環境保全センター was established and the offices who were in charge of the above 3 policy subjects situated themselves under the same roof in Atsugi City. Such coordination was the first attempt in Japan. Then, they drafted and implemented the 1^st Conservation and Management Plan for Deer 二ホンジカ保護管理計画 for 2003-2006. As a part of the plan, the office asked Kanagawa Hunting Club to cull the herds in the entire Kanagawa. At that time, reducing the deer population in this way was indeed revolutionary in Japan since the popular idea was dominated by “wild life protection.” Though, the policy had limitations. They asked the hunters to act within the framework of traditional “environmental conservation” that limited the hunting season from November 15 to February 15, and required to avoid killing does.

Kanagawa Nature Conservation Center

At the turn of the century, not many young mountaineering types joined the hunting club. “Oh, killing cute Bambi is barbarous!” became a cool mantra among Japanese by the 1990s … In 2003 Kanagawa, out of approximately 3500 licensed hunters roughly 1700 were over 60 years old. Though the mountains are not large in our prefecture, the terrain consists of very steep and often fragile cliffs and slopes. Deer are cautious animal. They normally move around in thick undergrowth and dark afforested area of congested trees. Now majority senior citizen hunters in Kanagawa were asked to stay put for hours in frozen bushes in craggy mountains to hunt for deer, with so-so emphasis on animal protection. Inevitably, the result of the 1^st Plan was … limited at best. The estimated Kanagawa’s deer population reached its peak in 2006 at about 6000. The deer crowded in the national park area ate up the vegetation and started to die in starvation. In the middle of the last decade along popular trekking roads of Tanzawa, many hikers encountered dead deer whose ribs stood out of their body … Meanwhile the prefecture did an additional and detailed scientific study for 2004-2006, and formulated the 2006 Basic Framework for Nature Restoration in Tanzawa-Oyama Area 丹沢大山自然再生基本構想. Consecutively in 2007, the prefecture introduced a tax earmarked for water resource environment conservation 水源環境保全税 that solidified the funding for the 2006 Framework. The Conservation and Management Plan for Deer was included in the Framework and the 1^st Plan was took over by the 2^nd Plan for 2007-2011.The Deer Plan is now in its 4^th from this year, which includes Japanese macaques as a target. 2006 Basic Framework is also revised periodically, and the current 2017 Basic Framework is its 3^rd. The most importantly, the methodology established in 2006 Framework has started to yield results these recent 2-3 years.

So, what’s the difference between the 1^st Plan and the consecutive ones? With 2006 Study as the scientific foundation, the prefecture took a holistic approach with 4 pillars to deal with the ecological problem. First, the botanists, including Dr. Jun Tamura 田村淳 of Kanagawa Nature Conservation Center, began to build walls against deer as much as the budget allowed. Unless the defense is just right, creative deer and the other wild animals invade into the protected space from a less than 20cm-high crack, and have lunch as much as they want to. With trials and errors, the scientists are tinkering the design of traditional fences, for its height (“About 1.5m is enough”), density of wire mesh, how deep the bottom should be (“Dig 30-50cm to tack in the hem of mesh”), how much width between the mesh-supporting pillars should be, suitable materials, colors, the way to twine the meshes to the pillars, etc. etc. Next, the prefecture has expanded civil engineering projects in mountains to stop soil erosion. Mobilizing forest volunteers to thin and mow the abandoned afforested areas is a part of the plan to restore the natural vegetation preserving the soil. The office also has been constructing small and big earth-retaining structures with whatever material suitable and economical within deep mountains. Thinned trees and rocks from screes in Tanzawa are one of the favorites. They also locate grating floors here and there to stop thin-legged deer approaching to the critical environment. These incessant improvements in defense against deer have started to produce the result. Within the walls the seedlings escaped the predation by wild animals and grow taller as we have seen in the Forests of Growing in Yadoriki 寄. Kanagawa’s approach is becoming a standard against deer in Japan. … Though, in contrast, the third and fourth pillars are more difficult to implement.

An old kind of deer fence,
or probably against hare.

The current deer fence.
The structure is definitely sturdier than the above photo.

In Mt. Oyama, a scene of land slide.

Grating floors near the peak of Mt. Oyama.

This is to protect the seedling of fir.
People say when the tree reaches to 2-3m high
so that its canopy cannot be reached by deer,
it’s safe to remove the protective fence.
This one needs a bit more nursing.

These trees have stomach bands.
They are to protect the trunks from deer grinding their antlers.

Babies are in the cradle …

Could you see the difference
between the area within the fence and the outside?

Soil retaining structures in the back of this photo?
They were constructed in almost bare forest floor
along Mt. Oyama Urasando 大山裏参道.

This one is in Hakone region.

The third column about ecological problem is hunting. In the end, unless humans act as the pinnacle in the food chain, wolf-less Japanese mountains do not have predator for deer. Effective deer walls simply push the herds to somewhere else and spread devastation in forests, or, at best, create boom and bust cycles of deer population. Hunting Club of Kanagawa Prefecture has been asked to kill more. From the 2^nd Deer Plan, does are positive target. The hunting season has been gradually expanded, and this year it becomes really all year round, for every Wednesday and Saturday. On the other hand, aging in the hunting community advances relentlessly. The active 65 years old hunters in 2006 are now 75. They are requested to keep wading in leech-infested summer bushes in Tanzawa. Actually it is a serious issue nation-wide. Although Japan Hunting Club and each prefectural Hunting Club are enthusiastically recruiting young hunters, nowhere is succeeded in increasing its membership. For example, Kanagawa Hunting Club has several public events, such as gibier BBQs, all year round to promote their activity and to persuade novices to train themselves for deer hunting. (Their coming events can be checked here.) Though, according to my fellow forest trainee who is a member of Kanagawa Hunting Club, the hurdle is VERY high to be a hunter in Japan.

A yesteryear notice for “Wild Life Protection Area,” in Yadoriki.
The Hunting Club’s ground this year can be checked here.
Even when the place is designated as a “Protected Area,”
if it’s also a “Deer Control Area,” hunting takes place.

Like this in Yadoriki, if hunting is on-going in a Protected Area,
a special notice is posted at the entrance of hunting ground.
When you hike in Kanagawa,
you’d better being attentive these notices.
You can enter the area, but knowledge is power.
And don’t deviate from the route.
You may be tempted to wade in the bushes,
and the hunters are waiting for
any animal moving through non-road.
Save your life,
and keep the environment of our national park as is at least.

A red hunting banner in the outskirt of Hakone region.
The flags like this are also an important sign for hunting area.

First of all, you have to have a permit to have guns in Japan, issued by police. Hey, we are not Americans, but the nation of the Constitution declaring “The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.” For you to carry guns in Japan, (0) you have to attend training sessions instructed by police in lecture and practice (; this year’s detail is here with Kanagawa Prefectural Police) for handling guns in Japan and pass the exam at the cost of approximately USD 200; (1) you have to submit the police all the necessary official documentations including the detail of your assets, income, family, and any proof you have no motivation to kill people; (2) your family members must pass the interview done by police to vouch your family life which does not have any possibility for murder, and (3) your neighbors and acquaintances must pass the interview done by police to make it sure your reputation is impeccable and they do not have problem living in a community with guns. Next, you must have a license for hunting in each prefecture. i.e. Your license in Tokyo is not valid in Kanagawa. When you want to hunt in several prefectures you have to go through the similar procedure for each place you plan to go. Now, to obtain license, you have to pass another exams that take one whole day to sit, and medical clearance emphasizing clinical appraisal of your mental stability. The cost? When you try to obtain full-license for Kanagawa, you have to pay about USD160 + documentation fee for your doctor that costs normally at least USD 50. (The detail of Kanagawa’s hunting license can be found here.) Next, of course you have to have your gun that is normally in the range of USD 5000 per rifle. You need bullets with price tag of at least USD10 per shot. Finally, you have to renew your gun permit and hunting license every 3 years with similar process including interviews by detectives about your current family and community life. My fellow forest instructor trainee said, “In the end, hunting in Japan is a typical status symbol!” It should be difficult finding a 20-something who can stay in snowy or leech-dominating mountains for days, AND satisfy these requirements. So, rich senior citizens are toiling this summer in hot and humid bushes of Tanzawa with vampire leeches to be the pinnacle of a food chain.

A poster for Kanagawa hunting license exams of 2016

Having said that, it is undeniable that the aging hunters engage in very important role to restore ecological balance in Tanzawa. Not only culling, they also record the ecological data of deer and environmental condition of the place where the hunting occurred. Their data is the basis for monitoring the progress in the Nature Restoration Plan for Tanzawa-Oyama. Since around 2015, it becomes more and more uncommon for hunters to record starved deer. The average annual number of deer culled is around 1500 these 2 years, which yields with a Bayesian estimation the current deer population in Kanagawa would be 3000-2000, or 20-30 deer per km². This is a decrease from 6000, or 50-60 deer per km² in 2006. It is the nation’s first scientifically confirmed decrease in deer numbers. Furthermore, the prefecture has a secret weapon: Kanagawa is the first prefecture who hires professional snipers to control deer population. They are called the Wild Life Rangers who are in 2017 a team of 6 snipers-cum-public servants of Kanagawa Prefecture. Their standard skill is ability to bring down a smallish doe within 300m range in deep forests + physical fitness to keep their skill for about a week in Tanzawa mountains of freezing winter, or of leech-fiesta of summer. Needless to say, they must have gun permits and hunting license of Kanagawa. The major location of their job is the places where senior citizen Hunting Club members cannot go, i.e., very harsh terrain. They also act as instructors for Hunting Club, and collect scientific data of the environment in their field. They are paid by tax payers and entitled to have sponsored health insurance, pensions, and any other perks public servants can enjoy. Observing a success in Kanagawa, many other prefectural governments started to employ Wild Life Rangers. Now, all the snipers of the world, if you are sure to pass every requirement to be a hunter in Japan + for your fluent communication skill in Japanese, this is your chance to have a stable job in Japanese nature! Job openings are often posted at the homepage of Japan Hunting Club.

A notice on a route from Kotakuji Temple 広沢寺 to Mt. Oyama:
“A bear was spotted around here in September 30.”
Er, it does not say which September 30,
but it’s not surprising to encounter bear in Tanzawa.
 Oh, by the way, the public toilet in Yabitsu Pass
was closed in May due to drying-up wells.
I don’t know if it’s related to soil erosion because of ecological havoc.

Actually at the entrance to
Ninoashi Forestry Road 二ノ足林道 from Kotakuji Temple,
the prefecture has posted this notice for hunting.
It also says
“In order to avoid meeting with bears,
choose your route with clear view.
In case you encounter with a bear,
never panic, and move away from the individual
as quiet as possible.”

You may have noticed all the pillars I’ve explained so far for 2006 Basic Framework in Kanagawa are symptomatic treatments. Indeed. The prefectural office knows it of course. And so, the forth, and probably the most difficult, pillar for the Deer-Macaque Plan comes in. It is in the end the problem of a weakened community management for human life in nature. Meanwhile, by killing-off wolf in Japan humans are responsible to act as the apex of the food chain in Japanese mountains. The duty includes maintenance of reasonable distance between the territory of wild lives and human community. It’s like an ultimate nobles oblige … The current chief for the prefecture in charge of wild animals is Mr. Kiyoshi Tanigawa 谷川潔, who quit his job about 10 years ago as a national park ranger to come back to Kanagawa from the Shiretoko Peninsula 知床半島, a UNESCO World Natural Heritage site. He is a sort of sanguine about the fundamental cause of “wild life problem” in Japan. The other day, he told his situation assessment to us forest instructor trainees. “We should regard all the slopes of Tanzawa and Oyama we can see from the Odakyu Line are home for Japanese bears. The community situating themselves along the border with the forests must maintain at least 100m wide clearance from the forests. Otherwise, not only deer, but also bears, boars, monkeys, and any other animals can use the poor view with bushes as a safe corridor for foods in human settlements. Once an animal learns the passage, it is extremely difficult to stop the individual to come back other than by killing it. I don’t like calling those repeater-animals pests to agricultural damage. They learned their animal road because humans were negligent for the land of our own livelihood. The animals are not at all guilty.”

Near Hinata Yakushi Temple 日向薬師.
These rice paddies are surrounded by high-voltage fences
to repel invading animals, including humans.
If you spot these during your walk, never touch it.
Few years ago, a similar kind of structure
electrocuted to kill several people in Shizuoka Prefecture.
Though it was an accident,
the owner of the fence killed himself afterward.
The 21^st century tragedy in Japanese mountain …

Mr. Tanigawa’s office is engaging in the execution of the fourth pillar. They financially and technically support aging rural community of Kanagawa to restore at least a semblance of populated Satoyama community of the yesteryears. In addition to the activities of Wild Life Rangers and monitoring in the national park areas, the people from the Nature Conservation Center go round the villages to encourage senior citizens to clear all the fruits of the orchards without delay before animals approach. They coordinate community meetings to nudge members to organize community-wide Satoyama maintenance activities, and clear bushes encroaching from the forests. They promote membership campaign for Hunting Clubs especially in villages right next to the national parks. Actually, with the help of prefectural budget, the townships of Yamakita 山北 and Matsuda 松田 have fairly generous subsidy for newly relocated folks from the metropolitan Tokyo to obtain gun permits and hunting license. (“And that’s unfair, I think,” so my fellow forest instructor trainee living in Kawasaki 川崎 said.) Probably because of Mr. Tanigawa’s office’s endeavor, Kanagawa Prefecture in recent memory does not have an incident where wild animals kill or seriously harm humans. But the situation stays critical. For one thing, restoring Satoyama management with fewer and older residents is something our society has never done before. The aging is the fundamental problem for Japanese society. Heroic community coordination efforts by officers whose main job is about wild animals have their limitation. Moreover, stabilizing national park ecology is showing the new phase of problems.

The agricultural community near Kotakuji Temple.
This place has maintained clear view for their orchard from houses.
That’s the way.

And you may notice it along the community road
from the Kotakuji Onsen 広沢寺温泉 bus stop;
 the forests and human settlement is demarcated
by high voltage fences for at least 500m.

In Kotakuji community.
Beyond the fence is a passage for wild animals including boars.

An anti-animal noizer in Kotakuji community.
It is set at near the end of the community road,
and reacts whatever moving object
(animals, humans, cars, bikes, etc.) approaches.
The sound of it is disquieting and, I would say, very sad.

These days, the wall-protected areas have unnaturally dense vegetation within the cage, whereas the outside remains under the deer pressure. If the environment is in balance, wild animals including deer would eat some of the plants without making the place bare so that artificial mowing of undergrowth by forest voluteers should be unnecessary. In such a case, deer fences can be removed altogether. Since the situation has been improved, can we do away the deer fences now? “No, no, no. The animals will come back to devour our forests again. Besides, the neighboring prefectures and beyond, Tokyo, Yamanashi, Shizuoka, … are some 20 years behind from Kanagawa. If we relax our guard now, the animals from there will enter into our land and the same thing will occur.” So Mr. Tanigawa said. The most devastated areas around Mt. Hirugatake 蛭ヶ岳 and Mt. Tanzawa 丹沢山 still have not recovered its former glory with centuries’ old beeches. Mr. Tanigawa added “We don’t know yet the timing of withdrawing vegetation protection or Wild Life Ranger activities … perhaps, having this human system would be the 21^st century way of being the pinnacle of food chain.” Japanese snipers are here to stay for foreseeable future in our forests.

This May, in Zizohdoh 地蔵堂 community in Hakone area,
we’ve encountered with this scenery.
A total of 7 wild boar hides were sun-dried along the community road.
According to a resident guy there,
the community did a traditional group hunting this winter,
and caught a family of boars by driving them into a pit.
The largest hide had at least 1m length.
“You see, it’s dried and shrunk this small.
The original was at least 1.5m long!”

North exit of Odakyu Hon-Atsugi Station.
You may ponder if it’s feasible to introduce wild wolves
from Siberia where genetically closer wolves
to extinct Yezo wolves are surviving.
There is a group who actually proposing this method.
According to Mr. Tanigawa, the prefecture simulated
an introduction of Siberian wolf at the north-most point of the prefecture
where Kanagawa, Tokyo and Yamanashi meet.
An individual set loose there late morning will come here within 2 hours.
The prefecture thinks Japan has too small territory
for very active Siberian wolves to co-exist with humans.

If you find environmental problems in mountains of Kanagawa Prefecture, please make a contact to

Kanagawa Nature 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/

Bambi’s Vampire Diaries: ecological havocs with wild life in Kanagawa, and in Japan

To think about Japanese deer (Cervus nippon) in forest, it’d be better starting from the behavior of them. They are artiodactyla with slender legs and 4 stomachs. According to Dr. Seiki Takatsuki 高槻成紀, the boss for the Life Museum of Azabu University 麻布大学いのちの博物館, their normal days are almost entirely dedicated to eat and ruminate. On average, an adult deer eats 5-6kg of fresh vegetation daily. They are a typical grazer. Comparing with endemic Japanese serow (Capricornis crispus) which is a browser, i.e. picky eaters, deer eat almost anything of vegetable. Serows eat sasa bamboos and Miscanthus sinensis only in winter when their regular dish of dicotyledon are scarce. Deer simply don’t care. They are also fecund. When they have enough food and a girl Bambi weighs more than 35kg on their 1 year old birthday, deer teenagers start to carry babies. Moreover, they keep delivering a fawn yearly until they reach to 10 or more years old. I.e., a doe has 9 offspring on average. The social life of deer is a harem. An alpha male dominates several pairs of a mom and a kid. They move around together in forest. All suggests when deer stay put for a happy family life, they can rapidly denude the vegetation of the place, or leave only the plants they don’t like.

Foot prints of deer

Let’s return to the 1970s. Animal rights’ movement was gaining momentum in Japan. It was reflected on the management strategy of national parks. By then, ordinary people did not meet wild animals in Tanzawa or Hakone. They simply thought they became so rare as one of the casualties of environmental destruction caused by rapid economic growth. The policy within Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park 富士箱根伊豆国立公園, and Tanzawa-Oyama Quasi-national Park 丹沢大山国定公園 was protection of the victims of human activities. On the other hand, outside the national parks there still were hunters and other human expansion such as motorization which were menace for the survival of wild animals. The animals simply found refuge within national parks that is roughly 800m ASL and up in Kanagawa Prefecture. Moreover, the afforested coniferous trees were tall enough by the 1970s, which made the forest floor darker. Those mice and hares that competed for food with larger animals lost the habitat and reduced their numbers. Without competitors, deer in particular started to have a protected comfortable life in Kanagawa with lots of food.  Well-nourished does constantly gave births to fawns. Around this time, Kanagawa Prefecture began to receive fewer snow falls. Before, it was common in the peaks of Tanzawa and Hakone to be covered by 1m or more snow for months during winter. Slender legged deer are not at all suitable to weigh in deeply snow-covered mountains. Especially for small fawns, snow is deadly. Many actually died during winter in Kanagawa. But since the mid-1970s, Kanagawa has not had deep snow even in the higher altitudes. More girl fawns could now have one year birthday in June and start to mate coming fall. Japan is a small country. The available forest a family of deer can roam freely has a limited acreage even if there were no national parks. By the beginning of the 1980s warmer mountains in Tanzawa had lots of deer harems concentrated in the national park area. They started to eat anything they could find. 

Yokohama’s annual average temperature and annual precipitation.
Er, well, it’s better to have data for Tanzawa or Hakone.
Unfortunately, for these places the older numbers are not retrievable from
the homepage of Japan Meteorological Agency.
(I guess we have to visit their office next to the Imperial Palace.)
Anyway, the mountains are just 40-60km away from the observation point of Yokohama,
without obstruction to the flows of air between the places.

As long as vegetables can reproduce themselves no matter what, the deer concentration won’t be a problem. Instead, from around 1980 the hikers noticed beautiful forests of Fagus crenata in 800m+ ASL of Tanzawa-Oyama began blighted. At the same time, Sasa borealis, which was a typical undergrowth of Fagus crenata in Tanzawa, was eaten by deer and often dead en masse. Then, the research projects started from 1993-1996 (more to them in the next week) confirmed for the first time scientifically a large increase in deer population. Moreover, the scholars realized in Tanzawa flora and fauna were interlinked closely. First, they found Tanzawa was receiving acid rain and photochemical oxidiants emitted by humans from nearby Metropolitan Tokyo. The chemicals weakened the plants in the area. Fagus crenata started to take more time to establish vigorous leaves and tannin which was natural insect repellant. Next came deer. They voraciously ate the plants reachable within the length of their necks. Sasa borealis and other plants including any seedlings were eaten up. The ground around tall trees received direct sunshine and (often polluted) rain, and started to be eroded massively. Fagus crenata is always a home for Fagineura crenativora which found their new dry habitat with less tannin wonderful. Moreover, the denuded undergrowth cannot be a habitat for birds and small mammals that were predators of Fagineura crenativora. The insect increased their numbers explosively, and devoured rapidly all the leaves of Fagus crenata. Unable to photosynthesize, the trees were starved to death. Other species of the already established tall trees may have escaped the fate of Fagus crenata, but their seedlings in Tanzawa-Oyama Quasi-national Park were not so lucky. The variety of forest floor plants became very limited at best, and the forest consisted only of old trees.

Deer cause damages to forests not only by
eating but also by grinding their antlers.
Their behavior can practically thin trees
by stripping away their cambium.
Last winter Dr. Takatsuki introduced us
an incident in Oku-Nikko 奥日光 where
centuries-old cedars died-back due to deer grinding
... I hope this still young cypress in Tanzawa
can survive the damage done in this way …

From around 2000, Japanese rural area began to notice unprecedented influence of deer and the other wild animals. Dr. Takatsuki constructed a picture using the data from Ministries of Environment and of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and concluded the acreages started to grow exponentially for the agriculture and forestry lands that suffered damages from deer. The number of deer caught by hunters also sky-rocketed, along with the number of locations they were captured/killed. His colleague of professional botanists were/are witnessing drastic impoverishment in their field including massive landslides. The red-listed plants, such as Viola kitamiana, were/are nearing the extinction because lots of Japanese/Yezo deer eat them. Ozegahara Marshland 尾瀬ヶ原 has started to dry-up because deer, wild boar and the other wild animals with increasing population forage the leaves and roots of the plants in the area. Okutama Mountains 奥多摩 in Tokyo were/are suffering the landslides as deer denuded the steep slopes, which is now a serious problem of water supply to the capital city. The trend continues today. These days, collecting wild spring herbs in Japanese mountains is a sort of desperate act. The season for herbs coincides with the time when now-numerous mama bears come out from hibernation with their cubs. Hearing nation-wide news for unlucky herb collectors who were killed by Asian black bear or brown bear has become a routine. Exploded boar population dominates the evacuated community around the Fukushima Dai-ichnuclear plant, and ravaged the land. The City of Kobe that is practically pasted to Rokkoh Mountains 六甲山地 has now a boar problem. Gourmet boars attack old ladies carrying cakes and puddings from famous patissiers, because the animals know the grandmas have wonderful sweets. Clever Japanese macaques invade into commercial orchards, and even rice paddies, just before the harvest and eat up the precious crops that would have sustained the farming households for the next year …

A billboard near Hinata Yakushi Temple 日向薬師 in Tanzawa.
It is warning the visitors the place is monkey infested.
“Please do not give bait to monkeys,
and be sure to carry the left-over of your lunch home.
Thank you for the cooperation
to reduce agricultural damage by monkeys in this area.”

The effect is not necessarily found directly from wild animals, but diseases. Some have started to worry a spread of Lyme diseases in Japan due to roaming herds of deer with ticks. More visibly, thanks to the skyrocketed number of deer and hikers from cities, especially Tanzawa is now infested by blood-thirsty land leeches.  It is not uncommon for people to show allergic symptoms with a leech-bite. Vampire leeches keep clinging to mammals to suck blood until they drink enough. Unless a prey notices and takes off the leeches from the body, they will be carried anywhere the animal go. Even if you stamp them hard, those slimy creatures simply survive. To stop spreading land leeches, when you find them in Japanese mountain, please kill them immediately by (1) showering them with salt, vinegar, ethanol or DDT, (2) (not recommended) roasting them by fire with at most caution for preventing wild fire. Those uninitiated hikers did/do not do these important tasks. Moreover, the leeches are hermaphrodite and lay thousands of eggs immediately after finishing their blood meal. Suppose you simply shake them off at a bus stop returning from a weekend hike, without terminating them. The formerly peaceful bus stop is now a home for many leeches. And don’t ask deer to deal with the problem. Thus, the larger the number of deer and hikers becomes, the wider the infested area is. Actually, around the turn of the century, some parts of Chiba Prefecture began to observe farmers giving up lands due to overwhelming land leeches carried by exponential growth of deer’s and hikers’ population. Luckily or not, Kanagawa Prefecture is more urbanized than Chiba, but the problem is serious nonetheless.

A leech showered by ethanol to death.
Have you noticed it’s a sort of chubby?
It sucked lots of blood from a guy,
and became like a pea like this.

If you find yourself a prey for leeches,
(1) peel them off with your finger,
(2) kill them immediately,
(3) on site, squeeze out the saliva of leeches
and wash the wound by clean water or ethanol,
and (4) if you carry anti-histamine cream,
apply it to avoid itches.
You’d better visit doctors afterward.
Having said that, the most effective strategy
against land leeches is not being sucked.
Especially in Tanzawa from May to October,
always cover your skin with
something difficult for leeches to stick.
Vinyl garment is not advisable.
In a sunny day, they crawl up from the ground.
If it rains, they shelter themselves
under any tree leaves, and drop down
to a prey when we pass below them.
The first line of defense is spraying leech repellent
your feet and legs,
and if it rains around your shoulders and neck too.
The standard chemical for this purpose is still DDT,
but I prefer the product of this photo as it’s DDT-free.

At least in Kanagawa, the system to cope with this 21^st century ecological problem has been in place and evolving. Our prefecture is actually the leader for this matter in the nation, although we can say for sure the problem is not at all solved even in our backyard. Next week, I tell you what Kanagawa Prefecture is doing these days, including hiring for a new job. For some of you who are interested in pursuing this particular career in Japan, I report you the terms of reference next week. It seems to me the vacancy ads for the posts are increasing nation-wide these days …

Sorry for this out-of-focus photo …
They are the stags I’ve met last March in Mt. Oyama.
They were actually fighting.

If you find environmental problems in mountains of Kanagawa Prefecture, please make a contact to

Kanagawa Nature 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/

FYI, humans are animals: a saga of wild animals and Japanese Satoyama

Japan is a mountainous archipelago (378 thousand km²) covered by forests, in temperate and semi-tropical climates with lots of rains all year round. She is a group of not-so-big islands separated from a gigantic land mass of Eurasian Continent far enough to prevent “foreign” species from immigrating massively. It’s been like this at least for more than 10000 years. Thanks to this condition, we Japanese happen to live in a peculiar environment. Seiki Takatsuki 高槻成紀, the boss for the Life Museum of Azabu University 麻布大学いのちの博物館, wrote in his 2015 book that Honshu Island (230 thousand km²) is home for vegetation whose number of species is equal to the number of varieties growing in the European Continent (10 million km²). He pointed out the number of terrestrial mammal species live in our archipelago is more or less the same in the entire Europe. Hmmm, a quick google search says, including homo sapience, we are a team of 130 species in Japan. Life of mountainous and smallish islands inevitably limits possible distance among the lives of different animals. Although now Metropolitan Tokyo is concreted almost entirely, until about 70 years ago, people lived in a hilly (at best) place where in spring and summer plants grew ferociously all over and lots of non-human animals regularly poked their heads from grasses and trees. Deer, bears, boars, hares, mice, foxes, weasels, insects, reptiles, etc. etc. found the things humans ate tasty. Annihilating them was practically impossible due to deep mountains surrounding a village. The traditional design for human settlement in Japan takes into account this. To grow foods in fields and to keep gathering nuts, herbs, mushrooms, firewood … in the neighboring mountainous forests, people had to find a way to control the encounter with animals. Satoyama was planned for this purpose.

Seeing Niiharu Citizen Forest
and houses of Niiharu Town
from Miho Nenju-zaka Park

Take a recent photo above, for Niiharu 新治 in Yokohama. A house is surrounded by trees such as persimmon and loquat in addition to horticultural flower trees. It also has bamboo forest behind that was once an important resource for making daily utensils. Before petrochemicals and electricity, the tall cedars beyond were broad-leaved trees such as Quercus acutissima that could be baked for good charcoals. Due to watchful eyes of humans the fruit trees near houses were tricky target for wild animals in the firewood forest. The middle in this picture is an agricultural field running along Umeda River 梅田川. Have you noticed for animals to invade into the field they had to pass human settlement or the river? This is the very basic strategy of Satoyama community. The villages in deeper forest had additional arrangements. For example, in traditional Japanese Satoyama from Kanto Region to the west it was common to build stone walls or fences, called shishigaki しし垣 between forests and agricultural fields in order to fend off large mammals like deer, boars and bears. Development of such human settlement needs well-planned mobilization of time and resources, even with the 21^st century mechanized tools. In addition, Japanese forest grows fiercely during spring and summer. Unless we mow the undergrowth frequently, and maintain the defense walls regularly, the community would be swollen by the forest within weeks. Once the defense shield, such as open views and walls, is covered by a forest, it is a boulevard for wild animals coming for a gourmet lunch in agricultural field. You see? Co-habitation among mammals in this crowded archipelago required lots of lots of jobs by humans. Historically, it was not uncommon Satoyama villages overpowered by animals. People lost all the food after a long struggle against animals, and left the place for good. “Foxes and raccoons could be smarter than us as they are apparitions of some divine spirit of the forest, couldn’t they?” “No, no, bears and wolves are far more powerful gods.” “Well, deer are messenger of gods in Kasugataisha Shrine 春日大社 of Nara 奈良. They are the gods …”

The footprints left in Niiharu.
Although Niiharu Forest is surrounded now by
the ocean of condos and detached houses,
it’s still a home for many small animals
such as hares, raccoons, and civets.
(More to them, next week.)
Oh, by the way,
I recently learned Peter Rabbit is in the end English.
The rabbit I’ve met last year in Niiharu is a Japanese hare
who lives a quiet solitary life in grass field.
Peter has a happy family life in tunnel, doesn’t he?
It’s the lifestyle of European rabbit.

It seems to me, the forests in Japan may not have been so abundant historically … I’ll return to it in my later post ... Anyway, for today’s topic, especially after Commodore Matthew C. Perry came in 1853 near Yokosuka, and western-style industrialization started in honest, the relation between forest animals and Japanese changed. Especially after Meiji Restoration in 1868, with growing population (… oh so by-gone era language …), deregulation about Buddhism-based dietary restriction, and hunting with firearms which became common after the introduction of universal conscription in 1873, villagers went into the forest and hunted animals massively for food and to protect newly introduced European style farming. Dr. Takatsuki suggested the effect of western style anthropocentric approach to the nature could have been enormous. Until then, Japanese may have thought humans and the nature were 50-50 at best. Now, people started to think the forest of geometrically planted “beautiful” trees in Versailles. The problem was, the ecosystems in Europe and in Japan were, and of course are, different. Europe is cooler, and has far smaller annual precipitation than Japan. Inevitably, biodiversity in their forest is smaller. In addition, the area north of Apes was covered by glaciers for longer time during Ice Age. Many living creatures were frozen to die, and never came back under limited supply of sunshine and water. For homo sapience, it’s easier in Europe to believe in the permission of the God to “rule” the rest of the living creature, with smaller disturbance to the environment, or even being beneficial to restore ecosystem. Japan was, and is, different. From wild animals’ point of view, their lives in Japanese forest became more perilous by humans with more aggressive will to kill. Japanese wolves and Hokkaido wolves were the most famous casualties of the change in people’s attitude. Hokkaido wolf was eradicated by 1896. The final body of a Japanese wolf was found in January 1905. They were extinct. But they were not the only sufferers. People ate voraciously meat of deer, boar, bear, rabbit etc. etc., and traded furs for European style clothes. By World War II, finding deer in Japanese forest became exceptional.

A day in a supermarket in Yokohama these days.
Now we in metropolitan Tokyo eat meat more than fish.

When Japan surrendered to the Allied Forces in 1945, the nation was in starvation, and almost all the cities in the archipelago were turned to ashes by regular and atomic bombs. Soon young soldiers came home and made babies. Starving and homeless population exploded. Inevitably, the mountains were deforested for reconstruction, and wild animals were hunted even more for food and fur. A sort of saving grace was people reforested stripped slopes with coniferous trees whose logs fetched wonderful price in the market during the 1940s and the 50s. According to Dr. Takatsuki, the coniferous forests of baby cedars and cypresses first covered by mantle vegetation that was an ideal ground for hares and field mice to multiply. The skyrocketed population of them flowed out from the mountain to villages. The farmers catch them for protecting their crop. Meanwhile, “new thinking” of environmental protection was imported from America and Europe. With this latest trend, the city folks saw casual approaches to wild animals in “backward” rural community “barbarous,” and began to call for “animal protection.”  Whatever the goings among humans, the baby conifers in the mountain kept growing and the forest floor got darker. The environment became unfit for mice and hare and their problem subsided. Eating hare became occasional, but the fever for Euro-American style animal protection movement kept momentum.

It’s the scenery of a village
in Aomori Prefecture 青森県 in the 1950s.
A big barn and lots of houses for farmers were there.
The place must have been very vibrant with lots of kids …

Japan entered the 1960s for a miracle economic growth. Factory jobs in cities offered more pecuniary rewards compared to labor-intensive ag-works. At the same time, expensive Japanese logs completely lost the market to cheaper imported materials from all over the world. The forestry industry in Japan was destroyed. The young population in rural community moved in drove to urban life where everything must be bought from shops. Japanese started to be dependent on imported foods, not grown domestically.  Industrially manufactured ramen-noodles became the coolest cuisine. The produce organically grew in their home by their parents were something of outdated. “Oh, by the way, how so-unfasionable is killing wild animals entering to boring ancestral rice paddies to eat that uncool rice our stupid parents planted!” In the 1970s, former kids from agricultural villages were urban parents dreaming their kids to be MDs or bankers to spend entire life in the middle of concreted skyscrapers and shopping centers, removed far from agriculture and forestry. The notion of animal protection was the “idea,” not something grounded on practical daily life. “In any case, it is rare to spot deer or any wild animals when we vacation in National Parks. Surely Bambi must be cute, isn’t it? I’ve never seen her in wild …” Hunters were seen as “enemies of modernity.” Not many young people joined hunting even for leisure. The average age of hunters began to get older ...

The peak of Mt. Daibosatsurei 大菩薩嶺 of
Yamanashi Prefecture 山梨県 in the middle of 1970s.
Don’t you think the afforested trees were still young?
The place was still in the process of post-war reconstruction.
It’s interesting to compare it with the recent photo
of the same place in this tourism web site.

Dr. Takatsuki is an expert of ecosystem for Japanese deer. When Japan started its 1980s, he noticed something was happening between Japanese forests and deer. Farmers began complaining deer, and his academic colleagues of botany said their research field began to change drastically. In his 2016 book, he referred a research by Toru Ohi 大井徹 published in 2012 and pointed out in 1985 the reports of agricultural damages caused by deer increased rapidly nation-wide. In 1987, the deer affected fields became larger than the mice-eaten places. In the 1990s deer-harm started to grow exponentially, while mice-problem became a mouse-size. But since the 1960s Kanagawa Prefecture has always been the opening ground of environmental research done by a plethora of universities in Metropolitan Tokyo. The scientists have been demanding a thorough and comprehensive research to be funded to tackle the problem scientifically. When in 1993 the officially recorded crop destruction by deer reached 45 thousand km² nation-wide, the prefecture initiated a 3 year project to collect data of environmental problem in Tanzawa-Oyama Quasi-National Park 丹沢大山国定公園. This was the first scientific and comprehensive monitoring about deer problem in Japan, and became the basis of 180° turn of Japanese policy for wild animals.

Kanagawa’s Deer stuffing displayed in
the museum of the 21^st Century Forest of Kanagawa Prefecture

Next week, I tell you the continuation of the story. And today, we again heard news boars were running around in the middle of big cities, like Kobe or Kyoto …

If you find environmental problems in mountains of Kanagawa Prefecture, please make a contact to

 

Kanagawa Nature 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/