Snow Monkey

The Japanese Macaque is native to Japan and live in areas where snow covers the ground for months each year. The north end is the north edge of Honshu Island, Japan. This limit is the one for nonhuman primates. That is why they are known as the snow monkey especially in winter. I’m not sure they are called so in summer… Jigokudani Onsen Wild Monkey Park, Nagano prefecture, is one of the habitats of snow monkey and maybe the best known to the world. The park opened in 1964 and observation and study the ecology of the Japanese Macaque. One winter day in the past year, an infant monkey came into the Onsen Bath (Hot spring) of the adjacent Inn and others followed. As monkey is impure, people decided to separate human and monkey and constructed simple hot spring pool. No doubt monkeys liked it. Since then, this place became world famous. We need to know this park is not fenced nor protected. It exist in the center of wild mountain valley. Monkeys are seen not only in the hot spring. Monkeys on the riverside, mountain slopes and walking on the street with human also fascinate me.