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Mark Brazil

Mark Brazil, a Briton based in Hokkaido, has written about the natural history of Japan in his Wild Watch column for over 30 years. After careers in conservation and natural history television, Mark taught for nine years at a university in Hokkaido before going freelance. He now travels the world as a lecturer and leader on wildlife-focused expeditions.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Jan 31, 2002

Taking a look at animals' 'me' and 'you'

We take for granted our ability to easily recognize the people we interact with regularly. We also take it as a given that we can distinguish between the many thousands of other people we meet superficially during our lives, perhaps never learning who they are, yet knowing each one of them as a different...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Jan 17, 2002

Adapting to living when the mercury falls

While you were tucking into roast feathered dinosaur (turkey) with all the trimmings this Christmas past, I hope you spared a thought for how other avians make it through the winter. While we humans celebrate in various ways to dispel the gloom of midwinter from the encapsulated warmth of our homes,...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Jan 3, 2002

Why do birds of a feather tend to flock together?

"Flocks" read the sign outside the onsen, or so I thought. My bird brain immediately clicked into "Hey, an onsen for birders." But why in remote Higashi Mokoto, Hokkaido? Surely it wasn't "Frocks?" A women-only onsen? But no, men were most definitely welcome. So what, I asked, did "flocks" mean?

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Dec 20, 2001

People may fear it, but many trees thrive on fire

In the melange of pagan midwinter mythology and religion that we now call "Christmas," trees, particularly evergreens, have come to occupy a prominent place in the festivities. In times gone by, mistletoe and holly were most common, but since the 17th century the Christmas tree has typically been some...

ENVIRONMENT

Dec 9, 2001

The heat's on nature in Japan

Think of Japan 100 years from now. The average global temperature has risen by up to 6 degrees, and here is no exception. Just as the cherry blossom wave passes up the country each spring, the frontier of many species, both plant and animal, has been moving steadily northward for a century.

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Dec 6, 2001

Nature allows for few winners in the face of fire

Fire! It's a word that strikes terror. Images of leaping, roaring, scorching flames spring to mind; images of billowing smoke and suffocating fumes; of people and other creatures great and small fleeing for their lives.

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Nov 22, 2001

Alien killers revel in 'cute pet' role

As a family, cats have successfully colonized the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia, with only Australia among the larger landmasses lacking native species. They range in size from the immense Siberian tiger to the diminutive black-footed cat of southern Africa, and take an equally diverse range of prey....

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Nov 8, 2001

Natural-born killers rich in grace and guile

When all that separates you from the night is a thin layer of canvas, and when that night consists of a darkness that is thick and soft like a blanket, sounds seem very close.

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Oct 25, 2001

Serendipity in Hokkaido's autumnal air

It was just a bridge, not even a special bridge. The Heiwa Bridge spans the eastern end of Lake Tofutsu in northeastern Hokkaido. To the north there is a narrow neck of wooded land and then the Okhotsk Sea. To the south lies more woodland, then great expanses of farmland. It was just a bridge, but suddenly...

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Oct 18, 2001

Rare hybrids on evolution's way to where?

Humans like rules as a way of ordering the world into familiar and comfortable patterns. For naturalists, one of the basic rules is the concept of biological species, which forms the basis of modern biodiversity and conservation studies.

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Oct 4, 2001

Marveling at mammalian masters of flight

I have dreamed of flying since childhood, and perhaps that is why I am obsessed with flying creatures. As ground-hugging humans, we readily identify with our fellow terrestrial mammals, assuming, easily enough, that being earthbound is a natural state for life on earth. But, think again. Even among the...

COMMUNITY

Sep 30, 2001

They arrive in bunches of bananas; they turn up in containers of vegetables; they sneak in hidden inside rattan and wooden furniture; they disembark from among shipped household possessions, industrial and military equipment. They are as pervasive as the computer server virus Nimda, but, in their own...

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Sep 20, 2001

Giant umbellifer stalks northern Japan

Towering above the surrounding lush summer herb growth stands the hollow-stemmed monster known locally as Ezo nyuu and to botanists as Angelica ursina. These pearl-headed plants appear at the height of summer, a potent reminder that the longest days are past and that, despite the heat, autumn is not...

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Sep 6, 2001

Quitting the wandering life to settle down

Where waves crash across rocky shores there is a narrow region between the uppermost level covered at high tide and the lowest level exposed at low tide, the intertidal zone, that is prolific of life. Living there are seaweeds, shellfish, fish that prefer shallow water and can survive the varying temperatures...

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Aug 16, 2001

Slow and steady wins the dispersal race

Humans have an anthropocentric tendency to look down on "cold-blooded" reptiles. We even use the term "cold-blooded" in a derogatory way to criticize people who seem somehow less than human.

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Aug 2, 2001

Salt tolerance and life's dispersal derby

Salt is an interesting mineral. We all need it. It is crucial to the operation of the cells that make up our bodies.

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Jul 19, 2001

Cracking the Coleridge conundrum

Snorting salt through the nostrils may seem a strange habit, but it must surely be healthy and can even be a crucial adaptation. After all, albatrosses do it and they can live for 50-70 years, an exceptional age among birds.

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Jul 5, 2001

Beauty versus the environment

Concerns over the introduction of alien species to environments that have no protective mechanisms against them are beginning to filter through the bureaucratic system in Japan to the point where action is being contemplated -- or even taken.

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Jun 21, 2001

The early frog gets the reproductive success

Travel out of almost any of the major cities of Honshu on an overcast, rain-threatening evening, and head toward rice country.

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Jun 7, 2001

Whose theory was it, anyway?

In 1835, Charles Darwin became the first of a long line of scientists to make a study of the Galapagos Islands. Now, on entering the research station there that bears his name, visitors come face to face with a bronze of the Englishman as a very much older and far more famous man than he was when he...

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone.

The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan

By Johan Brooks

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Yamagata’s Zao Onsen Ski Resort is a classic beauty

Yamagata’s Zao Onsen Ski Resort is a classic beauty

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