Yakushima macaques in Japan: Monkey hangout around the campfire

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"Japan Monkey Center": a tradition popular with monkeys since 1959

Photo: kyodo / dpa

Not only do people feel comfortable around a crackling campfire in winter, some monkeys in Japan also enjoy it.

This can be admired in the "Japan Monkey Center", where the "animal-like" cozy campfire has a long tradition, as a spokeswoman announced on Wednesday.

Always at the beginning of the winter solstice, so-called Yakushima macaques - a subspecies of the Japanese macaques - gather around a cozy campfire in the monkey park in the city of Inuyama in the central Japanese province of Aichi, where the animals warm up and eat roasted sweet potatoes.

The beginning of this tradition goes back to 1959 when a typhoon hit the region.

Park employees used the wood of fallen trees and driftwood to make a fire in winter and to warm up.

Some intrepid monkeys apparently found that wonderful.

The little monkeys came near the fire and began to play.

Today none of the animals are afraid of the fire, it was said.

And so the "Japan Monkey Center" now organizes such bonfires for the monkeys every year at the winter solstice.

Park visitors have until the end of January to marvel at the animals and their hustle and bustle.

Yakushima monkeys are native to the Japanese island of Yakushima, a world heritage site.

The snow monkeys of Yamanouchi in Nagano Prefecture are also almost world-famous.

The Japanese macaques, which live wild in nature, come down from the mountains every year in the winter months to bathe in hot springs in the Jigokudani Monkey Park.

The park, founded in 1964, is located in a ravine, where the monkeys came to hot springs to bathe before the park was founded.

Since the animals are now being fed by employees, the macaques can sometimes be seen there outside of the winter months.

abl / dpa