Today it's cool, cloudy, and foggy in the Japan highlands, about 10℃ (50℉), and I am ready to climb into the hot springs with Starry Eyes and other snow monkeys. Starry eyes is a snow monkey Japanese Macaque who I have known since she was a baby, and she always looks right into my camera lens eyes and often brushes by me to say hello. I love communicating with all wild animals, and in my six-plus years in the deep backcountry exploring and photographing, I have never experienced an animal attack. But, I have experienced a few close calls being hissed at and lurched at a few times by monkeys, cats, bears, snakes, and others.
In Japan the snow monkey species is known as Nihonzaru (ニホンザル, a combination of Nihon 日本 "Japan" + saru 猿 "monkey")
I hope one day as I sit on my favorite rock at the wild snow monkey park in Nagano, Japan. Where Starry Eyes has brushed by touching me with her body, I hope she will choose to pause and clean my hair as snow monkeys groom and clean each other, but that could upset some in the monkey troop. But on my last visit, I swear she was close to grooming me; it would be cool. Once in Hokkaido, I had a Raven by my cottage land on my shoulder as I often talk to ravens and crows, and in the wilds of Canada, wolfs often pass close by me; on one occasion, wolf pups visited my camp after 5-10 minutes, the parents came and collected them.
At age 5, we had a Raven as a family member and a wolf; we even had a visit by our town's game warden/conservation officer telling us we could not keep wild animals, so my Dad showed him the license for our so-called dog who could not bark and only howl, and we let the Raven go, of course, Rudy the Raven came home 30 minutes later.
As a word of warning, never attempt to look a snow monkey or wild animal straight in its eyes unless you have a relationship with them; they will most likely hiss at you and possibly lurch at you, but attacks are rare by snow monkeys other wild animals are a mixed bag. But a few years back, while leading my annual landscape wildlife snow monkey Hokkaido birding tour, I did see one guy touch a snow monkey while the monkey had his back to him and was relaxing in the hot springs, a game warden at the snow monkey park, and I tried to stop him, as he reached out, but we were too late, he got well deserved deep scratched across his face, luckily his jacket was thick, as the snow monkey had tried to bite his arm but did not bite hard enough to penetrate through his coat. But because of the scratches, he had to go to the hospital for deep cleaning and a rabies shot.
Communing with nature is beautiful; and has been my way of life since I was born into a wilderness-loving family; and I spend about a month a year or more in the backcountry camping, exploring forest bathing (shinrin-yoku); it's healing, and I am always searching for new power spots and scenic landscapes, birding wildlife regions to share with participants on my Japan photo tour workshops.