The raccoon dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides viverrinus) has recently become common in urban environments in Japan. We predicted that, like other carnivores adapted to urban environments, raccoon dogs ...in urban areas should have smaller home ranges than those in rural areas. We investigated the size of home ranges of raccoon dogs in the Akasaka Imperial Grounds, a 51-ha green area in central Tokyo. Between August 2012 and August 2014, 7 adult males and 4 adult females were radiotracked. Mean (± SD) home range size of these 11 raccoon dogs (100% minimum convex polygon = 17.6 ± 13.0 ha; 95% fixed kernel = 8.3 ± 5.7 ha) was smaller than that of raccoon dogs in rural areas obtained in previous studies, and core areas (75% local convex hull) averaged 3.7 ± 4.1 (SD) ha. We detected no seasonal changes in home range size. These results were consistent with the notion that urban carnivores typically have small home ranges. The small home range size seems to be explained by abundance of food resources, restricted environment, and the high population density of raccoon dogs in the urban green area.
Although urbanization is a leading threat to wildlife conservation, some species have adapted to a synanthropic lifestyle. We used a population of raccoon dogs (Nyctereutes procyonoides) in the ...Akasaka Imperial Grounds in central Tokyo, Japan to investigate how latrine-using carnivores can maintain their socio-spatial organization with human disturbance. Between 2012 and 2014, we selected 4–11 latrines per year (from a max. of 18 latrines recorded in the area) using 1 camera per latrine. We focused on latrines that included varying levels of human disturbance. We analyzed the temporal patterns of 3,257 latrine visits, of which 878 included defecation events. Overall, latrine use (i.e., visits with and without defecation events) increased as winter approached, coinciding with dispersal, and showed a seasonal shift from diurnal to nocturnal use patterns as days got shorter. Generalized linear mixed model results confirmed that temporal visiting and defecation patterns were affected by human disturbance and shifted from diurnal to nocturnal, although overall frequency of visits and defecation events did not decrease at disturbed latrines and raccoon dogs continued to use disturbed latrine sites. Raccoon dogs likely perceive human disturbance as predation risk and avoided this by shifting their temporal, but not spatial, activity pattern to minimize disturbance. Minimizing the amount of disturbance around raccoon-dog latrines at sensitive sites and times of day would allow them to co-exist with people with the minimal compromise to their latrine-centered socio-spatial organization.
The aim for Share Village Project is to renovate traditional old Japanese houses, known as Kominka, to establish the member-based guest houses. The project began in 2015 in Gojome Town in Akita ...Prefecture In which aging and depopulation was advancing. By cloud funding, this project succeeded and gathered about 1,000 members. Thanks for the projects, the city dwellers who were total strangers, visited their second home town and had fellowship with the local residents who are very attached to their community. Having interviewed 66 people and gathered their comments, this study clarifies the impact and shows how the rural and the urban community networks have connected. The graph analytics shows the change of community transformation, from the present to the past, after SV projects started.
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