Japanese Snow Monkey Hot Spring Experience
Japanese Snow Monkey Hot Spring Experience | Nagano ★ ONLY in JAPAN
Japanese Macaque aka SNOW MONKEY bathing at the Jigokudani Hot Spring waters of Nagano is one of Japan's most iconic sights. But there is more to this story than just monkeys in a hot tub.
This park has a special mission: to protect the resident monkeys and care for them through the hard winter. Staff have been doing that since the park opened in 1964, but it was in 1970 when LIFE Magazine put the Japanese Snow Monkey on the front cover that curiosity for the Japanese Macaque really grew. Despite being in a remote area of Japan, it gets many visitors from around the world.
The Japanese Macaque’s life here is dedicated to a 4 season cycle.
SPRING: babies are born, monkeys start shedding their winter coats
SUMMER: a lot of activity, playing in the mountain forests
FALL: monkeys start mating, bathing food and growing out their coats for winter.
Female monkey pregnancy lasts for 6 months. If babies were born in the winter, they wouldn't survive so the cycle of life to give birth only in spring is essential for the whole troupes survival here in the mountainous north.This is the only place you’ll find Japanese monkeys bathing, soaking. The Japanese Macaque is the northern most primate besides humans and they have significance spiritually to Japan for thousands of years.
These Japanese macaques look quite similar to their Gibraltar Barbary macaque cousins but with brown to grayish fur coats instead and pink faces when soaking in these remote natural hot springs.