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Moon Queartermaster
In almost every Japanese town and village, there's a shrine dedicated to Inari, the God
of Rice, like this one in the heart of Tokyo.
And in front of each shrine, standing guard, is a pair of foxes.
Hi, I'm George Page for Nature.
And it's the red fox's renowned cunning that's earned it a special place in the folklore
of both Japanese and Western cultures.
It's a combination of this cunning and its adaptability that's made it possible for the
fox to flourish in and around human settlements.
Our film this week gives us an intimate look at some red foxes living on Japan's northernmost
island, Hokkaido.
It's the second largest of the islands, and much of it still teems with wildlife.
But above all the other creatures, the foxes of Hokkaido have a legendary place.
There's a story of how the tiger once challenged the fox to a race around the world.
The winner was to be lord over all the animals.
The fox agreed, but cunningly held onto the tiger's tail all the way until the very last
minute before dashing past to win the race.
And so that's why there are no tigers here.
And foxes like this courting pair became lords of Hokkaido.
And in Hokkaido they have ruled over animals that for centuries have been celebrated in
Japanese art.
Hi, shy away!
But the Lord of Hokkaido doesn't have such an easy life.
Even in March, the sea around his kingdom is a frozen jumble of ice.
He comes upon a dead seal, but it's frozen and difficult to feed on.
This find could last him for weeks, but others have seen it too.
A carrion crow.
And on the horizon, a white-tailed sea eagle.
The fox abandons it for the time being.
Attracted by the crow's call, the sea eagle comes to investigate.
With a wingspan of more than six feet, it's Eurasia's equivalent of our own bald eagle.
The crow is expecting a meal.
But first it must wait for the eagle to rip open the frozen corpse with its more powerful
beak and talons.
Both these birds usually scavenge together and stay all winter, sharing the fox's frozen
kingdom.
For four months, Hokkaido is smothered by snow and ice.
Such bitter winters prevented the Japanese from settling here in large numbers until
the last century.
Before then, this chilly land was home to the Ainu, a quite different race of hunting
people whose way of life has largely died out.
They're thought to have come from Siberia, but no one really knows for certain.
Siberia is very close and is responsible for Japan's bitterly cold winters.
Icy winds sweep across the sea from Russia, and Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost island,
bears the brunt of it.
Most of its wildlife has more in common with Siberia than the rest of Japan, and its wild
character still remains today.
Especially here in the northeast.
The Lord of Hokkaido is well protected against the freezing wind by a luxurious winter coat.
He's the same species of red fox that's found right across Siberia, Europe, and North America.
The most widespread and successful carnivore on earth.
He continues his search for food among the coastal dunes, a search made more urgent because
he has a family to feed.
He lingers at some sweetbriars, and luckily for him, their berries have lasted throughout
the winter.
Rich in energy-giving sugars, they're vital for his survival when live prey is hard to
come by.
Beyond the dunes, a railway runs along a broad, flat valley, and through a landscape of farms,
fields, and windbreaks.
Sika deer tend to move into these lowland farming areas in the winter to escape even
colder weather in the mountains.
They're shy of humans and keep to the shelter of woodlands where they feed on twigs and
bark.
It's still very wintery when spring approaches, but even so, it's now that the animals start
producing their young.
At the edge of this copse, the fox's mate is confined to her underground den, nursing
their seven cubs, which are only a few days old.
She surrounds them with her warm body, making sure they don't die from the cold.
They can't see yet, and they're so small and helpless that for their first two weeks,
their mother hardly ever leaves the den.
She has to rely on her mate to keep her supplied with food.
Having a family to feed forces the male to travel many miles each day to hunt.
These are the remains of a hare killed yesterday.
A sharp overnight frost has frozen it stiff.
Because they're so common, foxes are well known to the people here.
Indeed, the old Hokkaido name for them means our neighbors.
The more modern name is Kitaketsuni, or northern fox, which is now the symbol of Hokkaido.
Even in almost freezing water, new life is also stirring.
Salmon eggs are hatching, the start of a remarkable story.
On emerging, they're less than an inch long and carry around a huge yolk sack.
This provides them with food for a burst of rapid growth.
A couple of weeks later, they're more than twice as long.
Their yolk sacks have shrunk and they begin to move away from their pebble bed and vast
shoals.
These fast flowing streams don't freeze over unlike most rivers here.
So they attract the pied kingfisher.
60
feet up, a white tailed sea eagle incubates her eggs.
It will take five months to raise her young, so she started nesting earlier than most birds
here.
Some of these birds are just beginning their courtship.
The Japanese greatly admire red crowned cranes, which pair for life and can live for more
than 50 years.
They symbolize long life and a true and faithful marriage.
They're called the birds of happiness.
Found nowhere else in Japan, in the early spring, they get together for an extraordinary
display.
They celebrate their partnership by calling together and performing ritual dances.
Adult pairs usually dance together, but sometimes juveniles without a partner get caught up
in the excitement.
The cranes stay in Hokkaido all year, distinctly Asian residents of an island that is home
to a surprising number of European animals.
A red squirrel has spotted another male trespassing on his territory.
After such a rough reception, the rival retreats.
And with him out of the way, the victor returns to his prospective mate who is otherwise engaged.
He's more interested in food than courtship and tells him so.
Nearby a great spotted woodpecker.
Like the red squirrel, its presence here is a clue to Hokkaido's close links with Siberia
and Europe.
The persistent male pursues his unwilling partner into the treetops.
The great spotted woodpecker has detected a beetle larva and chisels out a neat hole
to get to it.
The black woodpecker on the other hand is less refined and will literally peck the
branch to pieces to get at ants inside.
It's another European species which is found nowhere else in Japan.
The squirrels observe an uneasy truce.
Two pairs of hooper swans display to each other, a ritual ceremony to strengthen their
pair bond.
Although arguments erupt if strangers get too close.
They've just arrived along with thousands of others from wintering grounds all over
Japan together in early April on the still frozen lakes of northern Hokkaido.
Known in Japan as Ohakucho or the big white birds, they're anticipating the arrival of
the spring thaw and preparing for their migration north to Siberian nesting grounds.
Keeping their feathers in good condition is vital if they are to survive the flight ahead.
April southerly winds bring warmer air loosening winter's icy grip on the land.
It is true that the past總es are still too cold to survive the cold emergency until
Off the north coast, the pack ice that covered the sea of Orkask begins to thaw and break
up.
Now the swans depart, following the thaw northwards.
Ahead of them lies a journey of 2,000 miles to their Arctic breeding grounds.
The land they leave is rapidly becoming free of snow.
A line of dunes separates the coast from a flat inland plain where fields have been
cleared from the forest, all part of the fox's territory, which covers about one and a half
square miles on either side of the railroad tracks.
It's only in this century that the original forests of walnut, oak, and maple have been
cleared for farmland.
And right next to the farm is the cops, now free from snow, where the vixen has her den.
Her cubs are now about six weeks old and spend more and more time above ground.
This den has been used by foxes for years, and when she dies it might be inherited by
one of her daughters.
Foxes usually have four or five cubs, but she has seven, a large family.
She looks scrawny because her thick winter fur is molting and being replaced by a shorter
summer coat, and because she has to nurse seven hungry cubs.
Living so close to the farm, she's accustomed to the commotion of cattle being turned out
to pasture beside the cops.
Hokkaido looks very different from the rest of Japan.
Rice doesn't grow well here because of the cooler climate, so instead of rice paddies,
there are dairy farms.
Cows are considered a great novelty by the Japanese, and tourists from the South come
especially to see these farms.
One of the first spring flowers, a kind of wild arum called misobasho, appears beside
the stream.
And in the waters below, the young salmon have grown to three inches long by feeding
on tiny insect larvae.
For many, this is as big as they'll get.
Danger lurks everywhere.
He's got good cause to look worried.
Trout are especially treacherous, even though they're one of the salmon's closest relatives.
And crayfish will take any they can get hold of.
It's a perilous time for the young salmon.
More than half those hatched end up being eaten.
And it's not only dangerous here, there's another unexpected predator waiting, a Japanese
wagtail.
An injured mallard has no chance against our male fox, who's busy hunting for the family.
Watched by a ruby throat, a summer visitor to Hokkaido.
The vixen comes out to meet him.
She's still wary of letting him too near the cubs.
So when he resumes hunting, she takes the food to the den.
She makes no attempt to divide the food.
The cubs must fight it out among themselves.
But she doesn't want them to drag it too far away from the den.
So she steps in to retrieve the kill, taking it to a place where she can keep an eye on
the cubs.
A hierarchy is emerging among the cubs.
Like little thugs, they fight over every scrap of food.
Should food become scarce, the weakest cubs will be the first to suffer and die.
The vixen and her mate will have to work hard to make sure they all have enough to eat.
And now that the sea eagle chicks have hatched, their parents too are busy providing food.
The female joins the male at the nest to tend the chicks.
Although hundreds of eagles spend the winter in Hokkaido, only a handful nest here.
The rest have migrated north to breed in Siberia.
The few sea eagles that do remain feed mainly on fish, so they're no threat to the fox cub.
They are about 10 weeks old and no longer confined to the den, but are still accompanied
by their mother who keeps an eye on them.
They're perfectly at ease in broad daylight because they're not hunted or trapped here.
Foxes are popular in Japan and welcomed by most farmers because they help to keep down
the number of rats.
Too small to kill a rat yet, one of the cubs practices his skills.
For centuries, the fox has dominated Japanese folklore.
There's an old belief that foxes are endowed with magic powers and that to kill one would
bring bad luck.
And there are many tales of how the fox delights in playing tricks on people.
In one, the fox transforms itself into a charming girl and with a bewitching smile enchants
men and steals their hearts.
One story tells of a young fox intent on such mischief.
It turned itself into a beautiful woman and strolled into town.
But instead of admiring glances from the men she intended to deceive, she was greeted with
howls of laughter.
It turned out that the fox hadn't quite mastered the art of transformation.
The cause of so much amusement was its bushy tail still sticking out behind.
Chasing tales and wrestling takes up much of the cubs time between meals.
The vicious fights that mark the setting up of the hierarchy are over.
Each cub knows where it stands and they become more playful.
The
sea eagle chicks are never playful, but like the fox cubs they're growing fast.
The female regularly feeds them with tiny pieces of fish.
Her mate perches nearby, standing guard over the nesting territory, ready to confront intruders
like this rival male.
Chatter.
Such encounters are rare in Hokkaido because so few sea eagles nest here.
But farther north in Siberia, battles between adjacent nesting pairs are more frequent,
sometimes becoming so fierce that eggs and chicks are at risk.
The young salmon have outgrown the river where they were born.
After only a few months in freshwater, they start swimming downstream toward the sea.
None stay behind, they all go to feed and grow in the northern Pacific, traveling tens
of thousands of miles during their time at sea.
Crossing sandy shallows at the river mouth, their bodies are adapting for marine life.
Salmon are one of the few fish that can migrate between freshwater and the sea, a transition
that would kill most fish within minutes.
Until they reach deeper water, they can be picked off by turns.
In four years, the few salmon that have survived the gauntlet of predators will return.
This is the world that the young foxes must learn to survive in.
Near the farm is a cemetery, and the vixen pauses there briefly while taking three of
her cubs on a training trip.
Such guided tours are an important part of the cubs growing up because they get to know
the family territory and learn about its dangers.
She calls her stray cub back to safety, but she's quite unafraid of the car.
If it's not cars, it's kids.
They're on a training trip of their own, but the cubs couldn't care less.
Meanwhile, the male fox tries to take one of his cubs on a trip across a field full
of cows.
The cub is very dubious about the whole venture and doesn't want to go.
He's worried about the cows, and nothing his father does can persuade him otherwise.
The male appears to lose his patience, but the cub's too big to be picked up by the
scruff of his neck.
Ignoring his father, he's much happier exploring the edge of the field.
So his father sets off anyway and hopes the cub will follow.
He couldn't be more wrong.
That just confirmed the cub's worst fears.
There's absolutely no way he's going to cross that field.
It's July, and summer is well underway.
Temperatures will be in the 70s or even higher for the next couple of months.
Many schools now run field classes for children to encourage their interest in the countryside.
At this time of the year, there's plenty going on for the children to look for.
Summer's lush greenery provides a welcome contrast to winter's meager diet for this
male sika deer.
A hungry woodpecker chick keeps both parents busy, satisfying its voracious appetite.
The sea eagle chicks won't be confined to the nest for much longer, but even when they
can fly, they'll depend on their parents for food for another six weeks or so.
The reluctant squirrel couple obviously did get together.
Two of their offspring are exploring.
A little hesitant, they're not yet expert climbers.
Hokkaido's other squirrel is the Siberian chipmunk, which is found nowhere else in Japan.
It has a taste for clover flowers, which are rich in nectar.
The fox family has moved from the farm to this potato field beside the rail line, where
they'll spend the rest of the summer.
The cubs are now old enough to be left on their own, but when the vixen is around, she'll
often liven up their games.
Play is not just for fun.
It also helps develop the cubs' hunting skills, skills which they must acquire before they
have any chance of surviving on their own.
Suddenly the vixen spots her mate approaching.
She ignores her greeting and rushes to confront the apparent threat.
Actually it's our cameraman.
This brave defense of the family is because he's not used to the cameraman as the rest
of them are.
They don't mind at all.
The vixen greets him as he calms down.
Grooming each other helps to reinforce the bond between them, a bond that remains strong
until the cubs have grown up.
Most evenings, the male turns up with food for the cubs.
As usual, it's first come, first serve.
He gets an enthusiastic reception.
Although the role played by the male fox in raising his cubs seems to vary widely from
place to place, here at least he has played a vital supporting role, supplying the vixen
with food when the cubs were born, then hunting for the cubs, supervising training trips not
always successfully, and defending the family territory.
The cubs are now about four months old and that all seven have survived this far is thanks
in part to their hardworking father.
But before long, the bonds that hold the family together will loosen and then break, and the
cubs will have to face the world on their own.
About the time the young foxes are leaving, adult salmon are arriving home, returning
after four years in the Pacific.
Coming along their home coast, they recognize the very same river where they were born by
its smell.
But how they find their way around millions of square miles of ocean back to Hokkaido
in the first place is not clear.
It's possible that they're guided by the earth's magnetic field.
On arrival, they congregate for a while around the mouth of the river, getting used to the
change from salt water back to freshwater.
As soon as they swim into the river, they stop feeding, and there's no going back, so
their fate is sealed.
They have only one purpose and function now, and that's to get upstream to spawn.
In the past, people were mystified by and very grateful for the salmon's return.
Salmon often made the difference between starvation and survival to these remote riverside villagers.
They prayed to the river god, we could not exist without you for your favors and beg
of you that this year the salmon will run thick in the streams.
Today salmon have disappeared from many rivers because of overfishing.
Netting is now strictly controlled.
These fish, weighing as much as 15 pounds, will provide eggs for local hatcheries where
young salmon are reared to restock the rivers.
Only a small proportion are taken here.
The rest are allowed to continue their struggle upstream.
Hokkaido's salmon rivers are generally only a few miles long, so it takes them no more
than a couple of days to reach the headwaters.
When they reach the spawning area, each female digs out a shallow pit on the gravel bottom.
When she's finished, the male draws alongside.
Eggs and sperm must be released together.
The eggs can only be fertilized within a minute of being shed because they harden quickly
in the cold water, preventing the sperm from entering.
Afterwards, the female buries the eggs to prevent them being washed away.
And then they simply die of exhaustion.
Of all the thousands of salmon that traveled up the river, none will survive.
All their energy has been spent on this massive final act of reproduction, their lives sacrificed
for a new generation.
But the carcasses of the spent salmon are not wasted.
They're a feast for thick-billed crows.
The fox family has split up, and on their own, the young fox's hunting skills are put
to the test.
This one is trying to catch a vole.
She wasn't expecting the vole to bite back, and it manages to slip away, saved by the
young fox's inexperience.
Another cub wanders away from home.
Hunger often forces young foxes to scavenge around farms and villages.
This one has learned that roadsides are good places to find scraps.
But it's a difficult and dangerous time for them.
Road accidents, disease, and starvation take a heavy toll.
Out of this litter of seven, there's little chance that more than one of them will make
it through the winter.
Typically resourceful, the young fox hides surplus food in a rotten stump.
Eating food is the fox's way of planning for the lean times ahead, and it may help this
one to be a survivor.
It's becoming much colder.
Plants and animals are getting ready for the winter that's just around the corner.
The Siberian chipmunk is now busy stuffing his cheek pouches with food to hoard in his
underground burrow.
And a raccoon dog, or tanuki, is also on the lookout for food.
He'll eat virtually anything, including chipmunks.
The chipmunk is too quick.
The tanuki is fat at this time of year and needs to be, because he's the only member
of the dog family to hibernate during winter.
The first snow arrives in the mountains at the end of October and rapidly spreads down
into the lowlands.
In its wake, sika deer move back down from the high country.
They're never far from cover.
A haunting whistle betrays the presence of a group of stags traveling nearby.
But the females and their almost fully grown calves keep their distance.
They live apart from the males during the winter.
Flocks of bramblings pass through Hokkaido on their way to spend winter on the rice stubble
fields of the south.
And traveling with them, a rustic bunting.
Very few small birds stay to face the winter here.
It's just too cold and there's so little food.
People from the rest of Japan think of Hokkaido as the wild north.
And certainly in November, as winter closes in, it does become bleak and desolate.
Temperatures rarely creep above freezing by day.
And at night, they can plunge to 15 degrees below zero.
Hokkaido is actually no farther north than the French Riviera.
But it's at this time of year that being so close to Siberia really makes a difference.
Hong Kong, boundless covered 위해 clip Leonardstern AfD
Near the field where they played in the summer lies the body of one of the young foxes, finished
off by cold and hunger.
This young male, one of the litter's dominant cubs, is doing all right for himself and is
starting to establish his own territory which extends to the coast.
Beyond the dunes, fishermen face bitterly cold winds blowing from Siberia.
They are after cod which abound in these cold waters.
The beach is a good place to check if anything edible has washed up.
His thick winter coat is great for keeping him warm.
Unfortunately it's not waterproof and that water was extremely cold.
By Christmas it's cold enough for the sea to start freezing over as the pack ice closes
in.
So I have come to set up this base right over here in the shade of an elder
fox.
And so will I.
When the pack ice bunches up, fish are often trapped and pushed out onto the surface.
So for one of the young white-tailed sea eagles, this frozen sea becomes a good hunting ground.
A large, stellar sea eagle tries to steal the fish.
The coldest time of the year is February.
Simply surviving is difficult enough, yet the young male's attention is on other things.
He's excited by the smell of a vixen in his territory.
She's leaving urine signals that tell him she's come into heat.
Although she's been living in his territory all winter, they've had almost nothing to do with one another.
Until now, when they seek each other out.
She spots the male who's been tracking her scent.
The vixen leads him on a long courtship chase.
Any tensions between the two gradually disappear as they get used to each other.
Until finally, on an icebound shore, they mate.
They may stay joined like this for an hour or even longer.
Locked together for so long ensures that she becomes fertilized.
He seems a little jaded by the whole affair, but she appears thrilled at the prospect of a new generation of lords and ladies of Hokkaido.
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We're supplying natural gas across this land of ours, providing gas energy to fuel industry, warm homes, heat water and cook meals for over 160 million people from coast to coast.
We're providing natural gas across this land of ours, providing gas energy to fuel industry, warm homes, heat water and cook meals for over 160 million people from coast to coast.