Theme 5: The Ecosystems of Hokkaido

I'm a large Japanese field mouse. In summer I eat bugs. I'm at my busiest in autumn. Every night I hide acorns under the fallen leaves of the forest in order to protect them from other animals. I then dig them up and eat them during the winter.

Jay jay. I'm a jay. I love acorns! When collecting them I keep them in my throat. Then I take them back and stash them under fallen leaves. They're an important source of food in winter. Normally I can remember where they're all hidden but sometimes I'll forget one, and it will grow up into a tree.

I wear black clothes and a red beret. I'm the biggest woodpecker in Japan. Today, I'm pecking a tree to make a big square hole. The Ainu people regarded us as the spirits who make dugout canoes. But actually we just want to eat the ants under the wood. Aww, I'm still hungry so I'm going to go eat some more ants.

I'm a sable, a hunter of the forest! I'm good at climbing trees. If I want to eat something, I never fail at catching it. Mice, chipmunks and even larger creatures like the mountain hair are all my prey. I can even hunt swift-moving birds.

I finally came back to the river and got a girlfriend. We spawned more young, but now my body is spent. Hokkaido people call me hotchare. Even in my lifeless form however, I am still useful. Bears, foxes, insects and crustaceans can consume me. I believe my body is carrying the nutrients of the ocean to the forest.

We mostly eat fish. A long time ago there were many salmon and we never had to worry about food. Ainu people believed we were spirits that owned their villages and they had great respect for us. Now only a few of us manage to survive to adulthood and produce more offspring.

When I was alive, I used to eat fish and squid. Humans don't try to hurt us, but sometimes we get caught in their nets and die. Such was my own fate. Now, my body has been washed up on the shore and is being eaten by seagulls and crows. Afterwards, amphipods and small bugs will continue to eat me until only my bones remain. In this way, I contribute to the circle of life and bring nutrition to the animals of the land.

At one stage we nearly went extinct, but now our numbers are increasing. Humans think our growing population is a problem and sometimes try to kill us. But it isn't our fault that we come into conflict with them. It was humans that changed the environment around us, leaving us nowhere else to live. Some of my friends have been killed by their vehicles. They make signs that say ”Be careful of jumping deer”, but they should say ”Beware of speeding cars”.

Humans are frightening. I'm only twenty months old and still a cub. I've only just left my mother. While eating mountain grapes and hardy kiwi berries, I mistakenly ended up near where humans were living, and *sob* they shot me dead with one of their guns. It wasn't my fault that people cut down the forest and left us nowhere to live. It was us that lived here first after all.

I'm a raccoon from America, although I can't speak English. We used to live in the forests there, but humans took us to Japan to keep as pets. When they couldn't look after us they just threw us away. It's terrible. Now we're called an invasive species and humans try to catch and kill us. They're so selfish.