A Day for the Birds
Avi has written at great length about the plight of birds who enter the nets that "protect" the lotus farmers' fields along the shores of Kasumigaura. To read more about this issue, see the following articles.
- Bird Sanctuary or Mortuary (May 2007)
- Bird Rescue Underway: Six Saved Thousands to go (December 2007)
- Save the Birds (December 2007)
- Kasumigaura Bird Rescue (January 2008)
- Bird Rescue Stuck in the Mud (February 2008)
- Kasumigaura Bird Rescue Meeting (February 2008)
- Still Caught up in Kasumigaura Bird Rescue (December 2008)
Today, I decided to shadow Avi on one of his trips to survey the situation and rescue any birds that were caught in the nets. As we pulled up to one of the sites, Avi spotted a duck that was hanging from one of its feet and ran out to rescue it -- almost before I could stop the car! He only had one set of hip waders, so I had to watch on the sidelines, but that was probably for the best anyway, as the fields that he had to traverse today were really difficult to manoeuvre in and my short little legs would probably not have been able to propel me forward very effectively.
He rescued a small duck and a coot in one field and then we moved along the shore until we spotted a larger duck that was caught up in a net but still actively struggling to get free. The larger duck (a mallard) was located far into one of the fields and it took Avi a long time to reach him. Once the duck was free, he swam away into a neighbouring pond and then flew up and away with a vigorous flap of his wings. Unfortunately, the smaller duck and the coot did not seem to be very far off from perishing when Avi rescued them. They both must have been hanging upside down for a long time because even after they were rescued, they just sort of sat in the water, dazed. By the time we returned to where they had been rescued, there was no sign of either one of them. We think they both must have died in the interim.
Avi says that there is definite progress being made on this issue. Many fields that were completely covered in nets are now either open or only covered on the sides. Also, just as we were leaving, we think we spotted some city hall people who had come to remove the birds and the carcasses. I guess it is a bit of an embarrassment for the city to have a bird mortuary on the shores of one of their biggest tourist draws.
However, there is still work to be done. We saw many, many carcasses of birds who had gotten stuck and perished, and Avi assures me that I only saw a very, very small percentage of the fields today. It is important not to let people forget that so many birds are out there hanging from their feet or wings, starving (or freezing) to death. The worst part of it is that the nets are not even effective at keeping the birds out! The fact that the birds get inside the nets is proof enough of that fact, but even worse is the fact that some of the birds can also fly out of the nets -- proving that the nets are not really effective at keeping the birds away at all.
If you have some time to spare, I would urge you to contact Avi (avi[at]tora.email.ne.jp) and volunteer to go out to Kasumigaura with him. If you are strong enough (and tall enough), you can help him with the rescuing, but if you aren't, you can help by taking photos, getting the word out to your friends, helping to find ways to publicize this issue in the Japanese media or on blogs, translating information into Japanese, etc. As with any animal-welfare issue, the faster you offer to help, the fewer animals end up suffering.
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Bird Rescue Stuck in the Mud
By Avi Landau
Those of us involved in trying to have Tsuchiura's lotus root farmers take down their deadly bird-ensnaring nets have been making efforts to rescue as many birds as possible from slow starvation, until that end is achieved.
We have become, however, metaphorically and quite literally, stuck in the mud. First, there are the technical problems which need to be dealt with. These are: slogging through waist high muck which in this season is covered with a sheet of ice and makes the going very slow and dealing with the entanglements themselves which can be amazingly complex and even more time consuming as we do not want to damage property by cutting the nets.This is exacerbated by the weight of the birds themselves with makes the nets harder to deal with.
Maurice, who drives the long way from Iwama to look for and save living danglers has applied his ingenuity to making our activities more efficient. He has bought chest-high waders, has found tools useful for untangling knots, has found that covering the birds with a sack calms them down, and has developed a sling which takes the birds weight off of the entanglement.
Even for Maurice, the going is still very slow and we need more volunteers. We thought that an article in the Asahi Shimbun newspaper would give some publicity which would help our cause. Even though the reporter showed an interest in the problem and in what we were doing and was generally quite sympathetic, the subsequent article left us highly disappointed in that it didn't mention many of the crucial points related to the issue. There was also no mention of our volunteer activities.
One reason for this might be that many Japanese are currently upset and emotional about the foreign protesters who boarded their whaling ships. If this is the case, it was very bad timing for us.
Though we have had many disappointments, we are not about to give up. We will continue to push for changing the situation. Many other publications besides Asahi Shimbun have shown an interest in this problem and we will continue to appeal to the public. If you have any good ideas, PLEASE contact us.
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Bird Rescue Underway! Six saved, thousands to go…..
By Avi Landau
Something MUST be done about the senseless and cruel slaughter of birds in the nets around Lake Kasumigaura. And because Maurice, a Canadian living in Iwama has gotten involved, the beginnings of a volunteer rescue movement have started to germinate.
Maurice is an experienced environmental activist whose approach to getting things moving is to engage the farmers in friendly discussion in order to win them over to our side. Then if farmers refuse to or are not available to free birds entangled in their own fields, Maurice takes action, but strictly within the bounds of the law. He has purchased a pair of chest-high water-proof waders, and rubber gloves, and carries tools which are not used for cutting. He refuses to cut any nets in order to free birds (as the farmers themselves would do), because that could be considered an illegal act. Instead, he patiently and painstakingly untangles the ensnared wings legs and necks. He also takes precautions against bird flu by wearing a protective surgical mask. This approach is extemely time consuming, and we were only able to rescue six birds today. I felt impotent, standing on firm ground as Maurice plodded, like an astronaut on a planet with a strong gravitational pull, through the waist deep muck, slowly toiling to free the struggling survivers which he spotted with his uncanny eagle eyes.
Birds are continually being caught. Saving a handful of birds has no effect on the big picture and our ultimate aim is to have the nets come down as soon as possible. However, it was still extremely heartwarming and relieving to see birds that would have hung until starvation set in swim freely out into the lake.
We DEFINITELY need more people to get involved and we need more input and ideas.
Please contact us if you are interested in making a difference and doing THE RIGHT THING.
Thanks alot
Avi Landau
avi[at]tora.email.ne.jp
090-4221-4194
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In Real Life, Tsukuba’s Official Bird and Ubiquitous Mascot Gets Little Love These Days
By Avi Landau
In modern Japan, it is common for people to possess an owl of some sort. Not a real-live one, of course, but perhaps a stuffed animal, doll, figurine, painting, or even just a cartoon image of these instantly recognizable, flat faced birds. In fact at the library, I found a whole book dedicated exclusively to the different owl-shaped folk figurines produced in the various regions of Japan. These owls are usually kept at home, but I personally know several Japanese who ALWAYS carry little owl figures with them, in the same manner as I remember how some Americans always have a rabbit's foot in their pocket.
Tiny Owl Charms
The reason for this can be found in the Japanese name for OWL -- FUKURO （フクロウ or 梟) -- which can also be written with different KANJI CHARACTERS that give it a LUCKY significance. FUKURO can be written as 福来郎 （福: fuku, LUCK; 来: kuru, comes; 郎: ro, suffix for a boy's name), meaning LUCK COMES, or as 不苦労 (不: fu, no; 苦労: kurou, hardship), meaning NO HARDSHIP OR SUFFERING. This type of word play which creates auspicious, or inauspicious names for objects is called GORO AWASE (語呂合わせ), and in this way, owls have come to be one of the more popular motifs for ENGI MONO, or lucky charms, and those who are interested can find in certain books or magazines, detailed explanations of how owl figurines of various shapes, sizes, and colors have different types of luck-bringing power.
Those of us living in Tsukuba have an even more than usual exposure to owl images, as FUKURO are the official bird and mascot of the city. Owl characters adorn an assortment of city-owned property including the library computer on which I am writing these words. Also, the people who brought us the TX train line commissioned, at great expense, several stone OWL SCULPTURES which were placed in Tsukuba's Central Park (CHUO KOEN), between the police station and the ARS LIBRARY. This was not an original idea, however (few things in Tsukuba are original -- our festival is borrowed from Aomori City and we could go so far as to say that the whole idea of creating a science city here was in imitation of the Soviet Union's Akadem Gorodok), as it appears to be a mere copy of the owls which can be seen decorating one of Japan's most famous and busiest train stations, Ikebukuro. (Get it? IKE-FUKURO!)
Tsukuba Information Guide
Clock on Tsukuba
For Westerners, it is not surprising that the owl was chosen to be the official bird of our academically oriented city, as for us, it is the familiar symbol of wisdom. Since the Meiji Period (beginning in 1868) the Japanese, too, have adopted this view of owls being the philosophers of the forest, and the symbol of knowledge and technology. This notion gradually evolved in Europe because of the bird's association with the Greek goddess Athena, who as the protector of Athens went from being an agricultural goddess (owls eat plenty of mice!), to goddess of war and eventually to being associated with the learning and arts which thrived in her great city.
Before Japan opened up to the West, letting in this new symbolic significance for owls, it was classical Chinese texts, which described these nocturnal birds as bad omens or even evil creatures (at one point in Chinese history owls were nailed ALIVE to trees on the summer solstice day, because it was said that they ate their parents and were thus highly unfilial birds!) that influenced how the Japanese viewed them. Being mysterious creatures of the night, whose calls were often loud and frightening, reinforced this negative image.
At best, the owls were believed to be predictors of the weather, and a look at any encyclopedia of Japanese folk beliefs will show how various conflicting interpretations of the owls hooting developed in different parts of Japan in relation to the next day's weather. Anyway, these beliefs are now mostly a thing of the past as the Western view of the owl has taken firm hold.
Another reason for the owl having been selected as Tsukuba's official bird cannot be easily guessed anymore. The once abundant forests, which provided shelter and nesting possibilities, and the many wide open turf-grass fields, which make perfect hunting grounds (owls love mice and moles) made Tsukuba an IDEAL PLACE for owls to make their home.
Still in my neighborhood of KONDA, we can be awakened at night by the hooting and screeching of owls, and we can often seen them waiting for a meal or a mate, in the twilight, on utility poles and telephone wires.
In other parts of Tsukuba and Ibaraki, things have not been good for our official bird. Rampant destruction of our woods and what seems like the systematic targeting for elimination of any greenery, has sent surviving owls off to look for new homes. Unfortunate refugees might end up in Tsuchiura where they will very likely get caught in the deadly nets around Kasumigaura.
Unfortunate Owl That Ventured To Tsuchiura City
Maurice Gilis, who lives in Iwama, recently found a large Ural Owl, horribly entangled, which died a humiliating upside-down death. We have been reporting the danger of these useless nets for more than a year, but it appears that officials (and most other people) DON'T GIVE A HOOT.
It won't be long before our mascot and official bird will exist only in figurine and cartoon form, in this place where, until just a few years ago, it thrived.
I guess the owl is not REALLY a very lucky bird after all.
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Kasumigaura Bird Rescue
There is a serious animal cruelty problem in Kasumigaura. Birds are being trapped in lotus farmers' nets and being left to die a slow and painful death. Read more about this issue and what Avi and Maurice are doing about it.
Avi and Maurice have started a group called "Kasumigaura Bird Rescue" to help save the birds. One of their proactive activities is to educate people about this problem by bringing them to the site and showing them the situation and what they are doing to fix it. They meet at the east exit of Tsuchiura Station and then go to Kasumigaura together. The next meeting will be on January 20. If you would like to help, please meet at the station at 10:30am. Call Maurice (090-1691-1590) to let him know that you will be attending and to get more information. (Also, let him know if you have a car and can shuttle a few people to the lake and back.)
Let's make a difference together!
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