Arashiyama Monkey Park Iwatayama　嵐山モンキーパークいわたやま

ページ番号280184

2021年3月19日

Arashiyama Monkey Park Iwatayama　嵐山モンキーパークいわたやま

Arashiyama Monkey Park Iwatayama is home to a troop of 120 wild Japanese macaques that gather freely throughout the park, where they can be fed and closely observed from the park’s visitor center. The center is located at an elevation of 160 meters, on a mountainside dotted with cherry and Japanese maple trees that has a commanding view of the city of Kyoto. Kyoto University’s primatologists began studying the monkeys in 1954, and they helped to open the facility in 1957. It was at this time that the park staff began to assign names to every monkey in the troop. Researchers from the university still regularly visit to study the macaques.

The park has no outer boundaries, so while the troop may congregate during feeding hours, the monkeys are free to spend the daylight hours lounging around the park, and they generally travel up the mountain to sleep in the forest at night. Thanks to the consistent feeding routine and the scarcity of natural predators, such as wolves and wild dogs, monkeys in the park have a life span of about 30 years— equivalent to about 100 years for a human. Other wild animals, such as deer, badgers, and masked palm civets, also inhabit the park.

Visitors are encouraged to interact with the monkeys but to maintain a safe distance. It is against the rules to feed the monkeys directly, but visitors can purchase snacks, such as peanuts and apples, inside the visitors’ center and feed them to the monkeys through a wire fence.

The Macaques of Arashiyama Monkey Park

The current troop at Arashiyama Monkey Park consists of 120 wild Japanese macaques, including several infants that were born this past year. The macaques at the park give birth between late March and early September. The babies generally breastfeed for six to twelve months, but at three to four months they will also begin eating solid food and learning to forage by watching their mothers. Both adult males and females carry, groom, and protect the young in the troop. The park staff keep track of the babies born each year with a simple system: new monkeys are named by adding the year of their birth to the end of their mother’s name. Using this system, park staff can easily identify the matriarchal lineage of each monkey.

Baby monkeys fend for themselves from a young age, but it takes 3.5 to 4.5 years for them to reach adulthood. Adult male macaques at the park weigh an average of about 13.5 kilograms and reach lengths of 57 centimeters, and the females average around 52 centimeters and weigh an average of 8.8 kilograms. Males in the wild leave their troop once they reach adulthood. Although there are occasional fights for dominance among the park monkeys, the alpha male is usually replaced only after dying of old age.

Most researchers believe macaques made their way to Japan from the Korean Peninsula, and although macaques no longer inhabit the peninsula, they can be found as far north as Aomori, just south of Hokkaido and on the other islands of Kyushu and Shikoku.