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\n \t\t<\/a><\/p>\nBefore 2023, nearly all the monkeys in Ariake, a district of Azumino city, lived within the town, with only 1% in the mountains, said Masaya Miyake, who moved to Azumino five years ago and now leads the squad. According to the city, the macaques spend about half their time in the hills and the remainder in the villages, an improvement both Miyake and the city attribute to the group\u2019s efforts. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re just returning them to where they\u2019re supposed to be,\u201d said Miyake. \u201cNaturally, the food in the village is more nutritious and tastier. They\u2019re not simply being mischievous; they\u2019re just coming down to eat.\u201d <\/p>\n
Searching for the right method to control monkeys <\/p>\n
Takumi Matsuda had his first experience with monkeys when they broke into his home, after he moved to Azumino with his father 10 years ago. <\/p>\n
He now rises early to observe the monkeys, and his posts on Instagram have gained more than 60,000 followers. His photos and videos show the monkeys not as pests or pets but as wild animals.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to share with as many people as possible the peaceful behavior of monkeys in their natural habitat,\u201d he told The Associated Press.<\/p>\n
One winter morning deep in the mountains, Matsuda encountered a hunter authorized to cull monkeys, which Azumino estimates at a population of about 600 in the city. Capturing monkeys is done by hunting organizations with the government\u2019s permission.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I asked why he killed that specific monkey, he told me it was simply because he had seen it,\u201d Matsuda said. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe hadn\u2019t considered whether the monkey was from a group that encroached on human settlements and actually destroyed fields or attacked humans at random, or one that stayed deep in the forest.\u201d<\/p>\n
That made Matsuda question the city\u2019s approach. \u201cIn Japan today, opinions have become polarized between \u2018don\u2019t kill a single one\u2019 and \u2018kill them all,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cI oppose the wasteful taking of life and want effective measures so we don\u2019t have to keep killing monkeys forever.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Culling could make the problem worse\u2019<\/p>\n
The Monkey Chasing Squad patrols the hills year-round. Despite the group\u2019s efforts to keep the monkeys away from human settlements, calls to cull large numbers of monkeys are growing. <\/p>\n
\u201cA quick, painless death by someone skilled is the last kindness we can offer,\u201d said Azumino City Councilman Yoichi Tsujitani. He estimates it would take two to three years to remove macaques entirely from areas near humans.<\/p>\n
But efforts to cull macaques may have made the problem worse, according to ecologist Shigeyuki Izumiyama of Nagano\u2019s Shinshu University. When entire troops are removed, neighboring groups move in, and shrinking troop sizes push surviving monkeys deeper into farmland.<\/p>\n
\u201cPart of the issue is that legislators don\u2019t have enough time and are being asked to produce quick results,\u201d said Takayo Soma, a primate researcher at Kyoto University. \u201cBut ecology doesn\u2019t work that way. Macaques live about 20 years, so we need to take a long-term approach.\u201d<\/p>\n
More clashes between humans and monkeys are likely <\/p>\n
Michael Johnson, a retired English professor who has lived in Azumino since 2011, said that monkeys have broken into his house four times. A 2021 raid by 12 monkeys resulted in a five-hour cleanup after they feasted on eggs, bread, grains, fruit and almost everything else in sight.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey didn\u2019t get into the bourbon,\u201d Johnson joked. <\/p>\n
\u201cI stopped going to City Hall,\u201d he said, referring to local efforts to deal with the monkeys with free rocket fireworks and one-month air gun rentals. \u201cWhat\u2019s the point? I think my slingshot is better, though they\u2019re smart enough to stay out of range.\u201d<\/p>\n
The species was granted protective status in 1947 to rebuild its population after widespread killing during World War II. <\/p>\n
Izumiyama, the Shinshu University professor, advocates clearing vegetation near farms, pinpointing the location of monkeys with GPS collars using an antenna and smartphone decibel meter, as the monkey chasers do, and installing electric fences.<\/p>\n
Kazuo Matsuda, an apple farmer who installed electric fences on his property, said the fences keep monkeys from coming down the mountain and into his orchard but are expensive to maintain.<\/p>\n
Retired teacher Shigeru Maruyama, a member of the Monkey Chase Squad who also grows apples and blueberries, said dogs are better than people at chasing them away. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen people chase them, the monkeys just taunt us, like \u2019Come on, try me,\u2019\u201d said Takahiro Isomoto, who has trained dogs to ward off monkeys, bears, boars and deer. <\/p>\n
At a forest shrine, Miyaki\u2019s squad took a short break. Within minutes of being chased away, the monkeys returned to the shrine roof to watch the humans below.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow it\u2019s almost the opposite \u2014 like we\u2019re the squad that doesn\u2019t chase monkeys,\u201d the squad leader quipped. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AZUMINO, Japan (AP) \u2014 In the foothills of Japan\u2019s Northern Alps, people are chasing monkeys. Wearing bright orange…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[1147,1204,793,3471,151036,151039,12841,79,151037,151038,201,965],"class_list":{"0":"post-286825","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-animals","9":"tag-asia-pacific","10":"tag-general-news","11":"tag-japan","12":"tag-kazuo-matsuda","13":"tag-michael-johnson","14":"tag-monkeys","15":"tag-science","16":"tag-shigeru-maruyama","17":"tag-takahiro-isomoto","18":"tag-wildlife","19":"tag-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}