Tokyo Weekender July 2016

ody surfing on snowy banks, and playing
with balls.
It was probably a combination of these
traits, as well as their sheer number, that
drew a filmmaking couple, Kris Samuelson
and John Haptas, to devote a few years to the
crows of Tokyo. They got their first exposure
to the birds when they were returning from
teaching in Southeast Asia and stopped for a
while in Tokyo. As they explained, “there was
a garden where we were staying and we were
amazed by the huge number of crows we
heard and saw. We were intrigued and began
noticing them everywhere we went.”
Samuelson and Haptas returned home
to Northern California, intent on learning
more about city crows – “the urban guerrillas
of birds,” the couple calls them – in general,
and about Tokyo’s crows in particular. A
short visit to Japan to shoot a funding clip
followed, and a year and a half later, the
couple received a Japan-US Creative Arts
Fellowship that allowed them to spend five
months in Japan shooting what would
become Tokyo Waka.
In the words of the filmmakers, the
documentary is “an essay about man and
nature coexisting in a megalopolis.” Its subjects
include scientists, nature lovers, artists,
a homeless woman, Shinto and Buddhist
priests, and, of course, Corvus macrorhynchos:
the jungle crow, also known as the
large-billed crow. We see them building nests
with hangers stolen from people’s balconies,
chased away by the bees that make the honey
that is sold through the Ginza Bee Project,
and at play in the city’s many parks. The film
has its darker moments – we see a crow that
has been trapped by the Tokyo Metropolitan
Government and bagged for euthanization,
for example – but these scenes all help to
draw a fuller picture of the interaction
between humans and the animals they share
the city with.
As one of the film's subjects states,
"Japan has a love of nature, but it’s a kind of
nature that is moderated by mankind – not
necessarily a 'wild' nature." And that’s why
the crow is a complicated beast for Tokyo: it
is inadvertently “raised” on what we throw
away, but we really can’t control it, despite
our best efforts.
Another figure who is equally fascinated
by the city’s crows is Hajime Matsubara,
an Affiliate Associate at Tokyo University's
Intermediatheque. His first early exposure to
the birds set him on the course of research
that has become part of his life’s work: “One
day in my childhood, I heard a flock of crows
cawing to each other, on the way to their
roost. It looked as if they were talking, so I
tried to call them, imitating their call. A few
seconds later, two or three crows ‘replied.’
Of course, I’m not sure that they really called
back or were calling to each other for their
own purposes. Anyway, that was an impressive
experience for me.”
THE CROW HAS
AN OUTSIDE
PERSPECTIVE,
AND SEES RIGHT
THROUGH OUR
BEAUTY AND OUR
UGLINESS
To this day, he remains impressed
by their attitudes, which he often likens
to those of humans, and their “limitless
ability to adapt to any environment.” And
despite the city’s best efforts to control the
crow population, he believes that crows
have done quite well in the city. Matsubara
estimates that the crow population in Tokyo
is somewhere between 18,000 (the official
estimate of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government)
and 100,000.
As Tokyo Waka explains, trapping and
gassing crows has been the official city
policy for keeping the crow population
down, but Matsubara doesn’t believe this is
the best long-term approach (and not just
because the crows are getting wiser to the
city’s traps). “I think garbage control is the
most successful way. Because, if their food
resource is decreased, their reproductive
success and survival rate must decrease.
If we continue piling up garbage bags on
the street and keep carrying capacity high,
nothing can stop the crows from breeding
and coming into Tokyo from other places in
Japan.”
When asked about their intelligence, he
responds cautiously: “That’s a very difficult
question, because they are very smart
in some aspects and very foolish when it
comes to other matters. For example, crows
are insightful and capable of long-term
planning. Their cousins, the common raven
have shown researchers that they can
figure out how to untie bow knots simply
by watching other individuals’ behavior.
But, for example, they don’t recognize their
own mirror images, which is something
that even pigeons can do.” However, when
it comes to feeding, and figuring out how to
stay fed alongside human beings, he thinks
that crows are geniuses: “In Tokyo, [when it
comes to feeding strategies] crows can adapt
to human behavior very quickly – sometimes
within some minutes.”
Perhaps one of the things that attracts
us to crows is that they give us a seemingly
limitless opportunity to interpret their behavior.
For example, even though Matsubara
watches his research subjects with a scientist’s
eye, he says that he’s noticed two things
that humans can learn from the resourceful
crow: “‘Make the most of every opportunity
and be careful in seeking them out’” and
‘Love is forever.’ Why? Because crows eat
everything – even if it is garbage. And crow
pairs seldom separate.”
And, after all, who’s to say that the crows
aren’t considering us, as we go about our
days? Akiyoshi Taniguchi, a Buddhist priest
at Chohouin Temple in Kuramae, who was
interviewed for Tokyo Waka – and who had
a prize goldfish taken from the temple pond
by a crow – strikes a philosophical note as he
muses about how the crows of Tokyo might
look at the two-legged creatures they share
the city with: “They are observing us in their
own way. The crow has an outside perspective,
and sees right through our beauty and
our ugliness.”
For more information about Tokyo Waka,
visit www.stylofilms.com/tokyowaka.html. To
learn more about the Intermediatheque, visit
www.intermediatheque.jp/en
TOKYO WEEKENDER | JULY 2017 | 33