insights from frontier Japan

I boarded a sightseeing boat departing from Rausu to photograph the Steller's sea eagles and white-tailed sea eagles wintering over the drift ice, and used a telephoto lens to shoot the birds resting on the ice floes.

On December 12, a large pod of dolphins appeared off the coast of the town of Rausu in the Nemuro region of eastern Hokkaido. According to fishermen and other witnesses, a pod of what appeared to be over 1,000 Pacific white-sided dolphins, stretching over 700 to 1,000 meters, swam along the coast toward Kunashiri Island in the Northern Territories. It is rare to see so many Pacific white-sided dolphins at once off the coast of the town.

Early in the morning as the Shiretoko sky started to brighten, I went outside to get fresh air. Taking just one step out of the front door of the inn, already I was immersed in the smell of the ocean. The town of Rausu is sandwiched between the ocean and the precipitous Shiretoko mountain range. Houses line the shore. I took a deep breath, sending oxygen into my sleepy head. Rising up from the other side of the Nemuro Strait, Kunashir Island loomed large and black. It seemed so close, it felt like I could reach out and touch it.

Propelling its tail fin high in the air, the giant sperm whale begins to dive. Sightseers aboard the boat cheer at the breathtaking sight. I searched for whales on a whale watching sightseeing boat that departed from Rausu Port.　Although sperm whales have large bodies, they have comparatively small back fins, making them difficult to find. According to the guide on the sightseeing boat, sperm whales spout air at a slightly diagonal angle, and that can be one way of spotting them. But even using binoculars, all I could see was the brightly shining sea water.

On September 23, a dead, beached whale was seen being eaten by brown bears at Shiretoko Peninsula in the town of Shari, situated in Eastern Hokkaido's Okhotsk region. A video was captured by a passenger on a brown bear observation cruise ship that departed from the Aidomari Fishing Port in the town of Rausu.

Killer whales swim in the Sea of Okhotsk waters off the coast of the Eastern Hokkaido town of Rausu, and June through July is the best season for spotting them. Family groups called pods can be spotted, and sometimes super pods composed of multiple groups even appear.

Snow removal work on the Shiretoko Odan Road (National Highway Route 334) in eastern Hokkaido, which links Iwaobetsu in the town of Shari and Yunosawa in the town of Rausu, was opened to the press on April 8.

Like the spotted seal – which is known by the nickname of “Goma-chan” and is a protective white color that blends in with the ice – newly born ribbon seal cubs are also cute. They are not so cautious of their surroundings and, if you’re lucky, you may even be able to encounter a scene of a suckling cub.

A fight for fish involving two birds of prey began over the drift ice that covers the coast in the town of Rausu in eastern Hokkaido.