The Japanese Macaques are colloquially referred to as “snow monkeys” because some live in areas where snow covers the ground for months each year– no other non-human primate is more northern-living, nor lives in a colder climate. There are about 5,000 snow monkeys left in Japan, and they have no natural predators so they are generally quite confident around humans.
Watching the monkeys play, take a leisurely onsen – or even swim in the onsen – is a lot of fun. All the time the monkeys basically just ignore their human watchers and just get on with whatever it is they want to be doing. They are a tightly knit society with about 40 to 60 monkeys in any given group. Spending some time there will quickly reveal who rank above who in their pecking order as they interact with each other as if tourists were simply not there.
The monkeys all have distinctive facial features and unique characteristics and each one could be seen to be cuter than the next. Generally we recommend spending about 90 mins chilling with the snow monkeys so you can get absorbed into their world for a little bit, which is surprisingly engaging due to the range of characters like this grumpy old snow monkey.
Don’t forget your camera and expect to meet foreigners too. With more worldwide attention and increasing popularity, some days it can get very busy. Not that it seems to bother the monkeys!
