(JP)Monkey Business Life with our hairy neighbors

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http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/newse/20031227woc2.htm

 

Monkey Business Life with our hairy neighbors

 

Saori Kan Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer

 

Japan is one of the few developed nations where humans

are not the only primates living free. The other

primate in the case of Japan is actually the star of

the coming year--the monkey.

 

In celebration of the Year of the Monkey, red faces

and rumps have become ubiquitous in the designs of

postcards, calendars, ema votive wooden tablets at

shrines, and a whole host of other products.

 

But although human beings and monkeys have coexisted

for tens of thousands of years in this country, and

despite the appearance of monkeys in familiar

folktales, how many people can confidently say they

know a lot about the species or the relationship

between Japanese people and monkeys over time?

 

As the name indicates, Japanese macaques (nihonzaru)

only live in Japan. Their ancestors reportedly moved

to the Japanese archipelago between 300,000 and

500,000 years ago from the Korean Peninsula as they

expanded their habitat.

 

Nowadays, their southernmost habitat is Yakushima

island in Kagoshima Prefecture and their northernmost

territory is the Shimokita Peninsula in Aomori

Prefecture. The troops living in the peninsula, where

temperatures can reach as low as 14 C below zero, are

the northernmost nonhuman primates in the world. The

monkeys on Yakushima are categorized as a subspecies.

 

Though omnivorous, they basically live on plants,

eating shoots and young leaves in spring and fruits

and seeds in autumn. Their life span is about 25 to 30

years.

 

" Many people apparently believe that tribes of monkeys

are led by an alpha male or female, but actually it is

not that usual in the wild, " said Yukihisa Mito, 57, a

researcher at the Japan Monkey Center in Inuyama,

Aichi Prefecture.

 

Instead, the behavior of monkeys depends on their

environment. In regions where they have plenty of food

and do not feel threatened by humans, they don't need

a leader, he said.

 

Mito has been observing wild monkeys for more than 30

years all over the country, including in their

northernmost habitat.

 

" They never try to expel humans from their territory

as long as we do them no harm, " Mito said.

 

For example, one day while he was taking a nap after

some fieldwork, Mito was suddenly woken up by

something touching his hair. " I opened my eyes

slightly and found myself being groomed by a monkey I

recognized from the troop I'd been following, " he

said. " This made me feel very happy. "

 

Many researchers apparently have had similar

experiences.

 

In the book titled Hito to Saru no Shakaishi (History

of Japanese Macaques with Men), which was coauthored

by Mito and the Kyoto University Primate Research

Institute's Kunio Watanabe, it is stressed that people

and monkeys used to live with a better equilibrium.

 

Humans have clearly had a close relationship with

monkeys since early times as shown by clay images of

the primates found at ancient tombs and ruins dating

from the Jomon period (ca 10,000 B.C.-ca 300 B.C.).

The animals also appeared in a well-known picture

called Choju-giga (Scroll of Frolicking Animals and

Humans) kept at Kozanji temple in Kyoto, which is

believed to have been drawn during the Heian period

(794-1192).

 

In the Kamakura period (1192-1333), people became

quite superstitious about monkeys and started to

associate them with the protection of horses. Farmers

kept monkey limbs or skulls in their stables as charms

against evil.

 

As saru, the Japanese word for monkey, can also mean

" leave " or " go away, " people believed that monkeys

could keep evil away.

 

But what is the connection with horses? " Deer

sometimes use the same paths that monkeys use in the

mountains and it's also thought that herbivores eat

seeds that monkeys drop from the trees. In days gone

by, people probably saw this apparent interaction

between herbivores and monkeys in the mountains and

concluded that they were very close, " Mito said.

 

But people also hunted monkeys for food and to concoct

medicines for gynecological complaints because of the

relative ease with which monkeys are believed to give

birth, researchers said.

 

By the Meiji era (1868-1912), however, people no

longer had a feeling of awe toward the species. The

dramatic economic change that took place as Japan's

Westernization focused people's attention on making

money, even out of wildlife, Mito said.

 

However, some monkey-related traditions still remain.

In Takayama, a town in the Hida Mountains of Gifu

Prefecture, local people still make sarubobo stuffed

toys, which have featureless and oversized heads.

Sarubobo, which means " monkey baby " in the local

dialect, were originally stitched together by old

women as toys to give their grandchildren, but later

became charms to ensure healthy children. Nowadays,

the dolls with their striking red clothes have become

a popular tourist souvenir.

 

Japan is also known worldwide for its contribution to

scientific research into monkeys--a pursuit known

domestically as sarugaku. In the 1950s, some

researchers succeeded in establishing a rapport with a

tribe of Japanese macaques on Kojima island in

Miyazaki Prefecture.

 

Junichiro Itani, a leading field researcher who died

two years ago, once told me in an interview about his

first encounter with a troop in the prefecture in

1948.

 

" I remember seeing their coats glimmering in the

light. I was very impressed by their beauty, " he said.

 

 

On the island, a local woman spotted a young female

monkey washing a piece of sweet potato that

researchers had left behind. Based on her report, it

was later discovered that other monkeys had learned

how to wash potatoes, leading researchers to write a

report on " cultural diffusion in monkey society " --a

report that took the international research community

by surprise.

 

===

 

Monkeys as Tokyoites

 

You may have seen on television or even for yourself

monkeys snatching food from tourists or pestering them

for food along roads in the mountains around Nikko,

Tochigi Prefecture.

 

But you can catch a glimpse of wild monkeys in Tokyo,

too. They live in the mountains of Hinoharamura,

Okutamacho and some other municipalities in the

western part of the capital.

 

According to Motoi Iguchi, 52, zookeeper of Tama

Zoological Park in Hino, Tokyo, more than 800 monkeys

are living in the region and expanding their habitat.

 

Iguchi, who has loved monkeys since his childhood,

started tracking wild monkeys in 1980. Attracted by

the species that has survived in the wild, he spends

his weekends in the mountains following the missions

of monkeys.

 

Of course, you can see monkeys at zoos whenever you

want. But Iguchi said people should try to see them in

the wild.

 

" I clearly remember the gentle eyes of a monkey when

she looked back at me in a forest, and the muscle

strength a male monkey showed when he shook branches

of a treetop covered with snow, " he said. " This is

part of life in Tokyo. "

 

In 1985, he organized the nation's first monkey

observation day trip for ordinary people to help them

understand the life of monkeys in the wild.

 

Nevertheless, the problem of crops damage by monkeys

in the region is worsening, as it is in other regions

all over Japan. To prevent damage, more than 5,000

monkeys are killed in the nation every year. In Tokyo,

about 60 monkeys are killed as vermin, with

metropolitan government permission.

 

Iguchi, though, has continued his efforts to put

Tokyoites in touch with their primate cousins. Tokyo

no Yasei Nihonzaru Kansatsukai, a volunteer group

established by Iguchi, organizes a day tour for about

30 people on the last Sunday of May every year.

 

According to Iguchi, the tour has little impact on the

species and is entirely safe for human participants as

groups are guided by specialists. On such tours,

participants can see monkeys along river banks and

forest roads, he said.

 

" Not only monkeys but boars, serows and black bears

can be found living in western Tokyo, although not

many people know that, " Iguchi said. " I want more

people, who don't necessarily have a particular

interest in environmental issues, along with children,

to take part in our tour so that more people can

reflect on how we interact with these animals. "

 

===

 

Emergence of hybrid monkeys

 

While many of their counterparts are threatened

throughout the world, Japanese monkeys also are facing

a problem--the emergence of hybrid monkeys that are a

cross between foreign and native monkeys.

 

In March this year, Wakayama prefectural officials

captured seven monkeys and killed them. The monkeys

were not Japanese macaques, but hybrids of Japanese

monkeys and Taiwan monkeys.

 

The length of a Japanese monkey's tail is about 10

centimeters, but the tails of the seven Wakayama

monkeys ranged between 20 and 40 centimeters,

apparently proving that they were not native.

 

In Chiba Prefecture, about 100 rhesus monkeys, which

are not native to Japan and are often used in medical

research, are believed to inhabit an area around

Tateyama and Shirahamamachi.

 

" This is thought to be the result of a release or

escape of foreign monkeys into the wild, " Mito said.

 

" I want to give people opportunities to rethink how to

deal with problems related to monkeys, not just to

casually celebrate the monkey as a symbol of the

coming year, " he said.

 

 

 

 

 

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