The Japanese and Japanese Monkeys: Dissonant Neighbors Seeking Accommodation in a Shared Habitat

Human–Macaque Conflicts in Shrinking Communities: Recent Achievements and Challenges in Problem Solving in Modern Japan

“…These social changes might have encouraged people to hunt freely the macaque populations, including the vulnerable populations going through severe habitat bottlenecks. Historical accounts provide evidence that the macaques became commercialized in this period due to their high value as resources, not only as bushmeat, but also as traditional medicinal ingredients (Mito and Watanabe 1999;Mito 2011;Mito and Sprague 2013). In this context, the macaque distributions in the early 20th century were considerably limited and amounted to 2294 cells (approximately 57 000 km 2 ; Japanese mammal distributions have traditionally been shown by cell count, with cell resolution of 5 × 5 km) (Amagasa and Ito 1978;Koganezawa 1995), which was approximately 60% of the macaque distribution in 2017 (Nature Conservation Bureau 2018).…”

“…During the early 20th century, conservation initiatives to protect the declining macaque populations were ignored in Japan, which was at that time ravaged by recurring hostilities. In 1947, the Japanese government eventually reformed the Wildlife Protection and Hunting Law and removed macaques from a list of game species, to prevent their extinction (Mito and Sprague 2013). Moreover, in the 1960s, the outflow of the rural populations to the urban areas-> 30% of rural population left in this period-resulted in the depopulation of rural Japan at the border of the macaque living areas (Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries 2010).…”

“…The number of cells with macaque distribution in 1978 was 2288, and it was not very different from the cell number in 1923 (2294 cells), but this number markedly increased by 150% by 2003 (Watanabe 2000). As described above, it is paradoxical that this recovery process has rarely been considered a conservation success, as it has triggered unwanted effects and damaged the people-to-macaque relationships (Sprague and Iwasaki 2006;Enari and Suzuki 2010;Muroyama and Yamada 2010;Mito and Sprague 2013). One of the typical unwanted effects is the agricultural damage by the macaques.…”

“…Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) belong to this family and are the northernmost naturally occurring primate species on the Earth, except for humans. The macaques shared a critical status equivalent to most other Cercopithecidae until the period around World War II (1939-1945; hereafter referred to as WWII) (Mito and Watanabe 1999;Mito and Sprague 2013). The distribu-tion of most populations naturally occurring across Japan had drastically declined and had sometimes, in the worst case, resulted in regional extinctions (Mito and Watanabe 1999;Watanabe 2000;Mito and Sprague 2013).…”

“…The macaques shared a critical status equivalent to most other Cercopithecidae until the period around World War II (1939-1945; hereafter referred to as WWII) (Mito and Watanabe 1999;Mito and Sprague 2013). The distribu-tion of most populations naturally occurring across Japan had drastically declined and had sometimes, in the worst case, resulted in regional extinctions (Mito and Watanabe 1999;Watanabe 2000;Mito and Sprague 2013). After WWII, the state of affairs with respect to the macaque populations has changed rapidly; the details will be described later in the text, but both the intended national policy for wildlife conservation and the unintended social changes, resulting in the underuse of forest resources, have led to the successful recovery of the macaque populations in their original habitats.…”