A troop of Japanese macaques that has made an urban area its habitat is threatening residents’ daily lives, prompting the town of Yugawara in Kanagawa Prefecture to ask the prefectural government to capture the entire troop.
According to the town, about 33,000 incidents involving monkeys disrupted residents’ lives over the four years through 2025.
The monkeys that appears in Yugawara is the only remaining troop in the Seisho area along the western coast of Sagami Bay and is protected under government conservation measures. The town’s request states that it has been unable to find a fundamental solution to the problem.
Abandoned Homes Used as Bases
“When the monkeys see something tasty inside a house, they open the windows and come in,” a Yugawara town official said. “If they see women and children, they regard them as weaker and chase after them. They sometimes target shopping bags.”
Now, as summer vegetables are being harvested, the monkeys are also appearing in home gardens.
“The urban area has become part of the monkeys’ habitat, and they appear almost every day,” the official continued. “They use abandoned houses as bases and rest on building rooftops.”
The Environment Ministry’s 2024 guidelines on the conservation and management of Japanese macaques note that the animals can cause widespread damage because they move in troops, inflict significant damage in a short period and can cause greater psychological distress because they are active during the day and people often witness incidents firsthand.
Forced to Close Open-Air Baths
The troop living in Yugawara is known as the T1 troop, with 20 monkeys confirmed in a 2025 population survey.
As problems caused by the monkeys mounted, the town conducted a household-by-household survey focusing specifically on disruptions to residents’ daily lives.
It found about 27,000 incidents over the three years from 2022 through 2024, including monkeys climbing onto roofs and making noise, damaging homes and threatening residents.
A 2025 survey recorded another 6,000 incidents. Some residents reported ongoing problems, saying, “Because monkeys use the area as a route, I keep the windows of my home locked all year round,” and, “They started appearing near the open-air bath, forcing us to close it.”
Many of the incidents were concentrated in areas around JR Yugawara Station and the district containing the town’s hot-spring resort.
In addition to the incidents documented in the surveys, there have been reports of people being injured. In one case, a woman was surrounded by the troop and bitten on the foot. In another, a man was bitten on the foot while bathing at an open-air bath at a ryokan inn.
Concerns Over Impact on Tourism
Japanese macaques are not designated as game animals, meaning permission is required to capture them.
As part of its efforts to prevent damage, Yugawara has captured individual monkeys identified as causing problems with permission from the prefectural government and has had town employees drive the animals away.
However, the monkeys quickly return to urban areas even after being driven away, according to the town.
A foot bath at Manyo Park in Yugawara, Kanagawa Prefecture, February 2019. (©Sankei/Ayumi Asagami)
Yugawara is known as a hot-spring resort that was beloved by literary figures including Natsume Soseki and Akutagawa Ryunosuke. In its request to the prefecture, the town expressed concern that the monkey problem could also “affect tourism, the town’s main industry.”
According to the prefecture’s Fifth Japanese Macaque Management Plan, covering fiscal 2023 through fiscal 2026, monkeys were fed for tourism purposes at places including Mount Tenshozan in Yugawara during the 1950s and 1960s, leading to an increase in their population.
Agricultural damage, particularly to mandarin orange crops in the Seisho area, began occurring in the 1960s. By the 1970s, the monkeys had begun appearing in urban areas and causing injuries to people.
In response, the prefecture formulated a management plan covering the entire prefecture in 2003, with the goals of reducing damage while maintaining regional macaque populations.
In the Seisho area, the prefecture has previously removed entire troops, including the S troop, which ranged through central Odawara, and the H troop in western Odawara, based on the management plan.
However, the Seisho Regional Population of Japanese Macaques is listed on the prefecture’s Red List as a regional population at risk of extinction, and the T1 troop is now the last remaining troop in the area. As a result, the issue of capturing the entire troop requires careful consideration.
The prefectural government says it will consider how the monkeys should be managed, including the possibility of removing the troop, as it draws up its Sixth Japanese Macaque Management Plan, which will take effect in fiscal 2027.
(Read the article in Japanese.)
Author: Rie Terada, The Sankei Shimbun
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