Abstract
Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) are living in mountainous regions all over Japan except Hokkaido, Ibaraki and Okinawa. They have had very intimate ralations with Japanese. There have been, however, involved unlucky interests called ‘Engai’ which have become increasingly serious in recent years. ‘Engai’ is a crop damaging by them caused by several factors mostly consist of human effects, but so far it is uncleared what kind of problems are present and how we should remedy the condition. To bring out the present condition sorrounding Japanese macaque, we set out a questionnaire conducted onlocal governments from December 1984 to Februay 1985. Fourty four offices answered it and fourty two of them confirmed inhabiting of Japanese macaque. It was revealed that 24, 000 individuals are inhabiting now at the lowest, and 2, 500 individuals are captured under the pretext of their harmful bahavior to crops. This number is beyond estimated birth number in a year, even if there are 30, 000 individuals and the birth rate is estimated as 8% of total number About twenty percent of captured macaques were alive manner and some parts of them were sent for laboratory use through illegal channels. The crop damaging is, however, being more serious in spite of the mass capture. These results pointed out the necessity of close cooperating system consist of suffered farmers, local governments and research organizations for an effective conservational action.
