Abstract
There are several Japanese monkey troops in Shiga Heights, and violent exploitation of timber-felling and skii resort are going to give strong pressure to ecology of Japanese monkeys.
Since 1944s', in Shiga Heights cuttover area was expanded, and since 1960s' skii resort exploitation was promoted. Monkey and other wildlife habitats, therefore, became divided into small-sized areas and shrunk. Artificial provisioning for monkeys was done by sightseers in indefinite places, then original monkey ecology was strongly disturbed. And then, some monkey troops got down their home ranges, took crops along the foot-hills, and a part of the monkeys was eliminated. Such types of exploitation completed with the establishment of skii cources and other related facilities in Yakebitai Mt. in 1985. And, recently there is a more activity to develop Iwasuge Mt. as skii resort under the pretext of 1998 Nagano Winter Olympic Games.
On the other hand, conservation system in Shiga Heights is very poor, Shiga Heights were covered totally through National Park which have functions of conservation and exploitation, and the national park in Shiga Heights was rather promoting the side of sightseeing development. MAB reserve was set up there, but its core area is very small sized (742ha), and buffer zone (11, 850ha) is covered on totally exploited area as skii resort. In 1994, Saburyu Forest Ecosystem Conservation Area (12, 792ha) was set up in the northern part of Shiga Heights.
Although monkeys were eliminated by the appeal for monkey damage to crop production, there is no any judgement for the effect of monkey elimination. Wildlife management study must be done to adjust conflict between monkey ecology and human activity, and conservation area and its policy must be established on the base of wildlife management study.
