Fellowship of The Bakuchiku

“Who will join me to drive the monkeys back?”

M-san: “You have my skinny-man endurance.”

Y-san: “And my athletic brawn.”

K-san: “And my understanding of the terrain.”

(I also have high hopes for K-san’s animist powers as a shinto priest, but will never tell him.)

That the above exchange more or less happened at last night’s neighborhood association directors meeting is all you need to know that a great adventure is afoot.

Monkeys (Japanese macaques to be precise) have been coming into the neighborhood in the last year or so. In one incident, an elementary-school girl was left slightly injured and very frightened when a monkey scratched her. The city trapped and destroyed that monkey, but unless an outright physical attack occurs, the general policy is to not harm but instead discourage monkeys from coming into human habitat. As a visit to the city Agricultural and Forestry Section revealed, the main method to do this is to position a-few-to-several people along the edge of the human area facing into the monkey area and—preferably when the monkeys are present—set off firecrackers (bakuchiku) in buckets, which amplify the sound in a way that frightens the monkeys into thinking that human habitat is not desirable to enter. According to the written material given to us by city hall, which was published by some municipality in Fukui Prefecture, this creates a boundary for the monkeys that will often keep them back effectively.

Today I went for a reconnaissance mission around the property that is owned by the shrine, but which has not recently had as much monkey activity as has had the national research forest.

Although it was exquisite to tiptoe stealthily through wooded areas without trails—a much easier task in late fall than in summer—and also to sit on ridge lines and simply watch the forest exist, I lamentably did not encounter any of the monkeys. But this does coincide with what neighbors have been saying about the recent patterns of monkey movement.

We will need to discuss with and get the approval of the Forestry Agency before taking any action in the forests that they administer, since trees and wildlife there are both being studied. But if they will not cooperate in keeping their monkeys out of our neighborhood, we will raise a mighty stink.

Here is a look up the ridge. I have been rereading the Ulysses S. Grant biography lately, and due to its breakdown of various battles I did not feel good ceding the high ground to the monkeys should a confrontation ensue. But there weren’t any. Haha.