Wild Macaque Troop - Awaji Island Monkey Centre, Japan

Welcome to the Awaji Island Monkey Centre, 淡路島モンキーセンター, on the south-east coast of Awaji Island in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan.

These are wild Japanese macaques, not captive animals. The troop comes down off the mountain in the morning, spends the middle of the day around the feeding area, and heads back into the hills at dusk. Wild sika deer wander in from the same hillside.

The centre has been feeding this troop since 1967, and it now numbers around 350. Being wild, they set their own timetable, and autumn is the least reliable stretch of the year for them coming down at all.

Japan is nine hours ahead of UTC. In winter the monkeys press together in tight balls to keep warm, known locally as サル団子, monkey dumplings.

Did You Know? This troop is unusual enough to have been studied by Osaka University. The Awaji macaques are strikingly tolerant of each other compared with Japanese macaques elsewhere, with far less fighting over food, and leadership passes from one male to the next as the old boss ages rather than through a challenge. Researchers here have linked that tolerance to higher levels of cooperation.

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