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| Japanese Macaque along a busy hiking trail |
This is the final part of my 4-part blog series on wildlife photography in Japan. After visiting some of Japan’s wildest peninsulas and islands in part 3, I return to the Japanese mainland to look at a transformation unfolding in the countryside as the population ages and shrinks.
Click here for blog 3A country growing older
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| Wakkanai shopping street |
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| Abandoned house |
Japan is aging rapidly. Low birth rates and high life expectancy have led to a steady rise in the proportion of older people, while the total population has been shrinking for the past decade. In central Tokyo, this is not immediately obvious; the streets of Shinjuku and Shibuya are still crowded with young people and commuters. The picture looks very different in many rural areas and smaller towns. There, depopulation has been a reality for years. Schools have closed for lack of students. Once busy town centers are shuttered and entire villages have been abandoned.
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| Abandoned and overgrown |
Hiking through abandoned edges
Outside photography, one of the main pleasures of my retirement has been hiking. Japan is a largely mountainous country, and from Tokyo it takes only a couple of hours by local train to reach some of the most popular trailheads. Along the way, the trains pass through small towns and villages where the effects of depopulation are easy to see.
As the population ages and shrinks, nature quietly begins to reclaim these places. Empty houses are gradually overtaken by ivy, moss, and saplings pushing through broken walls. Persimmon and orange trees go unpicked, and vegetable plots are overrun with weeds. In these abandoned spaces between settlement and forest, wildlife finds new opportunities. Wild boars, deer, and Japanese macaques move closer to human habitation and raid fields and gardens.
A messy kind of rewilding
It is tempting to call this rewilding, but the reality is messier. As wildlife expands into abandoned or thinly populated areas, it also creates new frictions with the people who remain. Boars and deer damage crops, while macaques raid orchards and vegetable plots. As these animals become more accustomed to people, encounters grow more frequent and sometimes more dangerous.
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| Stag in front of fishing boat,Notsuke peninsula, Hokkaido |
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| Deer overlooking cemetery in Wakkanai |
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| White-tailed eagle on fishing nets, Notsuke peninsula, Hokkaido |
Communities respond as best they can. Some rely on “monkey-chasing squads” to drive macaques away with noise and other non-lethal tactics. Boars and deer can be hunted, but in many rural areas the pool of active hunters is shrinking as residents themselves grow older. In some places, wildlife populations are increasing faster than local communities can contain them.
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| Deer in downtown Wakkanai |
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| Fox crossing the street, Shiretoko peninsula |
Black bears at the edge of town
One of the clearest signs of the shift in the relationship between humans and wild animals is the growing number of Asiatic black bears near towns and villages. Recent years have seen a sharp rise in reports of sightings, damage, and attacks by bears, especially in northern and central Japan. During the warmer months, bear attacks have become an almost daily news item, and the internet is full of video clips of bears chasing humans, climbing fences or walking into supermarkets. The reasons include growing bear populations, warmer and less predictable seasons that lead to shorter hibernation, poor nut harvests that leave bears short of food in the mountains, the shrinking of rural buffer zones as the countryside empties out, and a dwindling number of hunters to keep bears away from settled areas. Once bears are used to human settlements with their easy food sources, they will come back. The official response has been to set bear traps and emergency culls. Hikers are advised to carry bear spray.
Personal reflections: parallel transitions
Looking back over the past six years, I can see how COVID changed the course of my retirement and set me on a journey of discovery in different parts of Japan. Photography has given me tremendous joy and a sense of purpose. It has also taught me a great deal about wildlife, its struggle to survive alongside human development, and the different ways Japan approaches conservation and wildlife management.
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| Japanese macaque |
At the same time, living here as a retired person has made me more aware of Japan’s broader transition. As I move through my own later‑life chapter, the country around me is also moving into a new demographic era: older, smaller, and in many places quieter. When I walk through abandoned town centers where deer graze beside empty shopping arcades, I sometimes feel like a time traveler catching a glimpse of a possible future. It is a future in which humans retreat from certain places and other forms of life reclaim them, not in a dramatic, overnight transformation, but in slow, uneven steps. My camera has become a way to bear witness to that process, one walk and one photograph at a time.
Joachim Theis joachimtheis@gmail.comInstagram: @joa.wild
Thanks for this series Joachim. Amazing. Coincidentally, was re-watchig a documentary on re-wilding Chernobyl yesterday. Not the same as the slow trend in Japan. But a glimpse of the resilience of nature and the smallness of man.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading all 4 parts Joachim (including gazing at your photos), and found them very inspiring. Many thanks for sharing.
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