Whilst in Japan recently we had the experience of a life time. We spent the morning in the world’s only fox village, according to the road signs. It can be found in the Zao mountains above the township of Shiroishi. It was winter in Japan at the time of our visit and the Zao mountains are over 1800 metres and are active volcanoes. The area also boast some of the highest annual snowfall in the world.
The fox village is over 30 years old and houses over 100 foxes. There are 6 types of foxes here – red foxes, silver foxes (the black ones), blue artic foxes, white artic foxes, platinum foxes as well as cross foxes. My favourite foxes are still the white artic foxes although the platinium and black foxes fascinated me as I had never seen them before.
They live in a fenced open area and have little fox house to sleep or rest in. Otherwise they move around freely doing what foxes do. They played. There were several fights. Some slept. Some appeared to hump each other. Others rolled around in the snow. They are very comfortable living this life while hundreds of visitors walk around with them taking many photos of them. We are warned on entry not to get too close or pat them as even though they are very cute they are still wild animals and will bite. If the foxes came up to us we were told to keeping moving.
You can only feed the foxes from one place. It is like a big hut that is off the ground with viewing platforms all around. The foxes know that this is where they can get food and many would get underneath to beg, jump and look cute to get some food. It was fun to pick your favourite fox then attempt to throw the pellets well enough that your fox could catch it in his/her mouth. You had to be strategic as there were definitely some pushy one who would try and steal the younger foxes food.
As you first enter the village there is a petting area where you can pay to cuddle a fox. Many people lined up for this experience, we just watched their enjoyment form the side.
If ever you have the time I would recommend visiting this special place. It was easy to get to via the bullet train and taxi and not speaking Japanese wasn’t a problem.