The Endangered Iriomote Wildcat

I just read this article in the New York Times about the danger to the Iriomote Yamaneko and decided I'd like to add a few personal notes to it.

Last April I traveled to the Yaeyama Islands in Okinawa, Japan. It's a small island chain between the Pacific and the East China Sea, just shouting distance from Taiwan. It's a small sub-chain, along with the Miyako, the Kerama, and the main island of Okinawa (mostly known here as the home of the US military) that make up the prefecture of Okinawa. But the Yaeyama chain has it's own distinct flavor and culture, stemming from the small size of the islands and their mostly untouched rural nature. Most of the land is used for farming and raising cattle. The other main industry is tourism, with most tourists coming form within Japan. The landscape is so different from mainland Japan, that people want to come to experience something foreign and to relax in these undeveloped island settings. Kind of like US tourists going to Hawaii, but in the Yaeyamas, there is really nothing equivalent to the sprawl of Waikiki, which makes me feel like I am in downtown Santa Monica, CA. Ishigaki is the Yaeyamas' most populous island, and most of its population (about 44,000) lives in the capital city at the south of the island, preserving an undeveloped island feel for miles northward.



Among the chain is Iriomote island, about an hour by ferry from Ishigaki, which is the main travel hub in and out of Yaeyama. Iriomote is actually the largest island in the chain, but also the least populous (currently). With only 2,325 people, the island is designated as a national park by the Japanese government. From what I could see, tourism was indeed its biggest industry. Most of the island is an undeveloped natural paradise. There is one two-lane road that makes an arc around the western half of the island (the eastern half cannot be traveled by car). Most of the businesses (shops, inns, gas station), towns, beaches and other attractions are accessed by this road.

One of the biggest draws for me to visit there was the possibility of hiking into the unspoiled back-country. I read about this on a site written in limited English, and I just had to do it. So, with help from a Japanese-speaking friend, I contacted a guide who agreed to take me on the hike, which traverses the entire island in a day (approx 16km - not very hard, but all of it through wild jungle).
I read some accounts of English-speaking tourists doing the hike by themselves. There were a handful of American or British English language school teachers living in Japan, who traveled to Iriomote on their vacations and decided to do the hike. They gave good information, but also confessed that it was impossible at times to find the trail and it took them far longer to finish than was estimated. One very helpful blogger, Justin, corresponded with me and sent his photos taken with his girlfriend while on the hike. They could not read Japanese, though, and halfway through the hike they encountered a sign with writing in green and red. They followed the green arrow. They got lost, it began to rain and they had to pitch a tent. The next day, his girlfriend fell in a river and got her passport wet. They made it out and enjoyed it. I was not discouraged, but I did not want to spend the night in the jungle with the Habu - a poisonous, and nocturnal, pit viper.

As it turned out, enlisting the aid of the guide was one of the highlights of my trip. His name was Morimoto-san (nicknamed "Taishi"). Despite his limited English and my limited Japanese, he was a wealth of information about the jungle, having lived on Iriomote for years. He was not a native of the island, having moved there from Kyushu, but he was the only dedicated volunteer park ranger, and generally seemed to be regarded locally as a leading authority on the flora and fauna there.


We drove together to the mouth of the Urauchigawa and boarded a boat upriver to the trailhead. While we hiked, he would identify trees, plants, bugs, even historical artifacts from the Ryukyu era and the coal-mining days, sometimes pointing to illustrations in a nature encyclopedia that he had contributed to. When our crossing was blocked by a fallen tree, Morimoto-san would pull out a fold-up saw he kept in his pack and cut through the branches. When we passed calf-deep through running water (acquiring some leeches in the process), there were ropes to hold onto, which Morimoto-san had tied in place previously. If he saw the smallest scrap of an object foreign to the wilderness, like an old sock, he picked it up. Thankfully, there was very little of that kind of thing, since few people pass through here. He told me that he was not paid for serving as a ranger for the island, so acting as a guide provided him with an income while enabling him to maintain the wilderness.

When we reached about the halfway point, we passed the sign that had scuttled Justin and his girlfriend. Next to the green arrow Morimoto-san had written, "Dame," meaning "No good, don't pass this way." That path had been made impassable by a typhoon. The red arrow pointed the proper way out to Ootomi village, and after taking a short break we followed it. Again, I was glad I had chosen to go with Morimoto-san.

Iriomote is the world's only home to the yamaneko, which Morimoto-san told me was about the size of a housecat. This animal has been made famous in Japanese animation (thereby introducing it to an audience worldwide), but few people have actually seen the animal. Morimoto-san has seen it and a big part of his passion for preserving Iriomote's ecology is tied up with preserving the yamaneko. He told me that there were thought to be only about 100 of the animals left, and that each year an average of two were killed while crossing the island's only road. The road now has warning signs with images of the cat, drawn by Morimoto-san himself.


After finishing the hike, Morimoto-san's wife picked us up at the south end of the island and we made our way back by car. Along the way, they pointed out two new hotels being built. Just last year, most of the lodgings on Iriomote were rather basic. The place I stayed was a minshuku - akin to a hostel, with simple rooms and tatami mat beds. The new buildings looked as if they might cater to a more deluxe class of traveler. On the one hand, this may be good for Iriomote's economy, and probably bring more business to Morimoto-san and other tour guides (not to mention more money for natural preservation projects), but their construction and existence also threatens the already perilous balance of nature on the island. The worst thing for Iriomote would be a large influx of tourists not interested in the jungle, but only in expanding the frontier of the "Club Med" type experience.

I did not see the yamaneko while doing the hike. But I hope that I could still have a chance to see one on a return trip.
If you decide to go to Iriomote, visit the jungle with Banana-House (Japanese only), Morimoto-san's tour company. You do not have to trek the entire island, he also offers kayak trips and other activities.
Also, look up Kanpira-So as a place to stay, and see if you can go snorkeling or hike to Pinaisara Falls with Toshio, who operates the Mifaiyu tour service, next door to Kanpira-So.

Hiking Alone

I made a loop. Earlier than I'd intended. Made an incorrect assumption. It happens. I returned to where I'd started and missed what I'd been looking for. Despite the near-constant stream of banter which passed between me and Jae, we somehow avoided making this particular mistake together. I guess internal monologues can be louder and more distracting than external dialogues.
Maybe the second head was the smarter one.
The worst wounds are the self-inflicted ones, the ones that strike at one's self-worth. The soul is what rebuilds the self when the world has struck it down. Rebuilding takes ingenuity.
Losses always seem to stir memories of other losses, other failures. We mark time by what's changed. Everything is a choice; sometimes our choices are unconscious. Morality is a choice.
Staring at a tree that's lost its leaves can be melancholy. But being melancholy is a choice. And so is staring.
Emotion is inherently irrational. We're equipped with reason and feeling. Are these not tools? If we find ourselves flailing, could we not choose a more appropriate tool?
Is it our confidence that blinds us when we trample off-road and lose our way? Or is it our doubt that leads us there?
No animal, man or beast, can destroy you. Only you can do that.
Love yourself, harm no soul.
Remember, and leave something wonderful to be remembered.

Half Dome Hike

Click photo to enlarge

Just returned to work after a calf-brutalizing hike to the top of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park. Santahn took me seriously and actually put this trip together. His friend Chad found last-minute reservations for cabins in Curry Village on craigslist. We set out hiking on Saturday about 5:30am and did not return till after 9pm. It's about a 16 mile hike roundtrip.
The last stretch of the hike is a cable climb up a near-vertical stretch of rock. Going up, someone spilled water making the rock extra slippery. A woman almost slipped away. Three guys grabbed her. We stood for long stretches, clinging to to the cable in a kind of mountain traffic jam.
The top is a bit windy and the landscape looks like the moon.
Coming down, the water bottle in the side pocket of my backpack got caught in the cable and tumbled away down the mountain. Not having water made the remaining 5 hours of the hike a bit hallucinatory. We were all out of fluids and had to resort to splitting an orange four ways. I ate the peel.
But at least we had lights. After about 3 miles on the return trip down the mountain we lost the sun. As we made our way down we came upon several groups of people who either had no lights at all, or had them but could not find the trail. Those who had no lights were simply sitting beside the trail in the dark, waiting for people with lights to come along !
Our group grew to about 20 people... a long line of tiny lights snaking its way down a wooded mountain trail... like elves.
The prevailing sentiment seemed to be "amen" as large quantities of pizza and beer were consumed after our safe arrival back to Curry Village.
Click here to see a slideshow. (You don't need to be a registered user of Kodak Easy Share...)