気ままなリライト１７

日経新聞記事　「浅草三社祭、アプリで周遊」

５/２１/２０２２

浅草・三社祭、アプリで周遊

This year’s festival season is ready to serve as a sociological litmus paper to check how capable local residents are of breaking free from the spell of the pandemic-fed fear-mongering. Fed up with keeping falling prey to the illusionary fear of the pandemic, some festival organizers are willing to release the pent-up energy spoiled by the festival cancelation for the second straight year. Others are unwilling to decide whether they stay in much ado to evade any risk of infection at the expense of local economic vigor without seeing through what is really going on, frightened of the shadow the corona-virus has cast over their lives.
 
The sacredness of the deities enshrined at Asakusa Shine has dispersed the corona-related negative emotions lurking in the minds of local residents and international tourists as festival organizers decided to resume one of the three great festivals of Tokyo called Sanja Matsuri for the first time in three years on May 21 as a two-day event. The fearfulness about the infection was belittled by the magnitude of the economic ripple effect arising from the festival. The parade of portable shines is projected to magnetize two million tourists from other areas of the country and other countries. The festival is expected to generate 62.8 billion yen’s worth in festival-related sales. With the second-largest impact on the regional economy tourism consumption makes among the festivals held in eight prefectures in the Kanto region, Sanja Matsuri makes Asakusa famous for international tourists, thanks to a smartphone app designed by Asakusa Tourist Association. The app as a travel guide helps make the user’s holiday enjoyable through the information available in multiple languages about tourist attractions and various event schedules in and around Asakusa.
 
The resumption of some summer or autumn festivals is up in the air as festival organizers are torn between their aspirations to expose themselves to a festive atmosphere without the implanted idea of how scare the corona virus is and their willingness to swallow something incomprehensible under peer pressure. Among the festivals with a lot of tourists waiting in expectation of a full-scaled re-opening are Yoshida Fire Festival and Tsuchiura Firework festival. The two-day fire festival held in late August in Fujiyoshida City, Yamanashi Prefecture gives tourists the sensation that the reality they are in is a mirage as a sea of flames from huge three-meter-high burning torches made from pinewood stretches out along the street leading to the Fujiyoshida Sengen Shine. Nearly 200,000 tourists enjoy a burning sensation or visit the Sengen Shine as a spiritual gateway leading to the sacred mountain during the festival. In the firework festival held at the beginning of November in Tsuchiura City, Ibaragi Prefecture, a dazzling display of 20,000 fireworks makes about 700,000 visitors overwhelmed with excitement and wonder.
 
 
The organizers of other festivals have reached a compromise between the fear of criticism from coronavirus-sensitive people and a hunger for local economic revitalization. The Star Festival known as the Tanabata Festival was scheduled to be resumed from July 8 through July 10 in Hiratsuka City, Kanagawa Prefecture for the first time in three years. The Tanabata Festival was designed to be downsized in tourist traffic due to organizers’ request for voluntary restraint in visiting the festival from other prefectures. With gorgeous decorations hanging from the top of tall bamboo poles as the main feature of the festival, it brought an economic ripple effect worth 9.3 billion yen, magnetized about 1.55 million visitors in 2019. Also, the festival called Kiyru Yagibushi Festival scheduled to be held in August in Kiyru City, Gunma Prefecture was scaled down as the traditional dance as the main attraction was cancelled this year. Up to 500,000 visitors gathered to dance around turrets set up around the city center in 2019.

日経新聞記事「餌の確保不安定、動物園が困惑」５/２１/２０２２

餌の確保不安定、動物園が困惑

The pandemic-triggered brouhaha has brought social and economic complications, taking its toll on zoo animals. Due to a serious repercussion on global supply chains and Japan’s heavy dependence on international suppliers of hay or silage, herbivores in zoos across the country have been getting into trouble. The enough amount of dried grass has not reached hungry mouths to feed. A short supply of hay has robbed other zoo animals as well as herbivores of the comfortable environment they had taken for granted.
 
What has kept eating zookeepers across the country is the unstable supply of hay or silage from the U.S. and other major importers. A shortage of dock laborers is hampering the logistics service at US seaports, delaying or shelving the shipping of hay to Japan. Shipping containers once assigned to carry hay are being reserved for more marketable commodities. A decreasing amount of hay imported by containers is putting the burden of preventing zoo animals from starving on zookeepers as the perishability of dried green fodder makes it hard for zookeepers to lay in a supply of herbivores’ feed in advance.
 
How to feed herbivores in zoos with an innate penchant for a specific kind of hay has been challenged when most kinds of hay have fallen in short supply in zoos across the country. Tightened safety measures against Covid-19 blocked the shipping of Bermuda grass hay from abroad, leading to a big headache for camels and kangaroos feeding chiefly on Bermuda grass hay during the period between November 2021 and January 2022 in the Prefectural Zoo in Tobe Town, Ehime Prefecture. In the Tokyo Ueno Zoo where the confusion in a supply chain of Lucerne hay to feed black rhinoceroses and okapis brought a decline in the shipment from 1,500 kilos in November 2021 to 900 kilos in December 2021, with alternative fodder replaced, black rhinoceroses and okapis were put on a nutrient-based diet to survive the unexpected situation threatening the zoo animal-friendly environment.
 
The scarcity of imported hay and the likelihood of the increase in the shipping price of hay have forced zookeepers to figure out how to value animal well-being in a budget-saving way. In Tennoji Zoo in Osaka City, Osaka Prefecture, Asa Zoo in Hiroshima City, Hiroshima Prefecture and Kyoto City Zoo in Kyoto Prefecture suffering from an unstable supply of dried grass, since December 2022, hay as bed-making stuff for zoo animals has been saved as a food source for herbivores. Instead of straw beds, woodchip beds were offered to minimize the stress animals felt in the change of their environment for sleep.