Twenty years, one troop
Yugawara has been chasing Japanese macaques off its streets since 2004. The people who do it now have a name in Kanagawa's fiscal 2026 macaque plan: the Yugawara Town Wildlife Damage Control Capture and Chase-off Cooperation Team (湯河原町鳥獣被害対策捕獲・追い払い協力隊). What the troop is, and what to do when you meet one, is in our guide to living with the T1 troop. This is the chase itself, across twenty years.
In fiscal 2025, counted through the end of December 2025, the team was out on 247 days, for 131 person-days and 179 outings. Through the end of December 2024, the year before, it was 245 days, 126 person-days, and 190 outings.
Air guns, then a weekly team
Kanagawa's handout on the troop starts further back. In 2004 and 2005, Heisei 16 and 17, there were 124 outings, then 113.
From 2006 to 2008, Heisei 18 to 20, town staff went out with air guns and firecrackers. The local hunters' association used rubber bullets and blanks.
In 2009, Heisei 21, the town wildlife council's chase-off team (町鳥獣対策協議会追い払い隊) went out three or four days a week. In 2010, Heisei 22, that became six days a week, and 366 outings. From 2011 to 2015, Heisei 23 to 27, the people doing the work were members of the hunters' association and other chase-off staff.
Twelve days of pushing them uphill
In 2018, Heisei 30, the prefecture tried a different move. For 12 days it trialled a GPS-guided push back toward the mountains, and it surveyed where the monkeys had settled in Kajiya. Both are in the same handout.
That handout also describes the split that followed. On weekdays the daytime patrol is the town team, and nights and holidays are town staff. Residents who ask are given firecrackers and rocket fireworks. The monkeys, it says, are very used to people, and the chase-offs have not been effective. How to ask for those fireworks is in Firecrackers from the Town.
Volunteers, fireworks, and two collars
A town councillor told TV Asahi on 20 September 2026 that the chase-off team works hard as volunteers, mainly with rocket fireworks, and that lately the monkeys have gotten used to them.
FNN, on 5 October 2026, described a patrol day: when the troop nears town, the team out on its rounds uses the location data and answers with fireworks and firecrackers. Two lead monkeys wear GPS collars. The prefecture's supplements for fiscal 2025 and fiscal 2026 add patrols near each elementary school at the hour children go to school. In July, August, and September those patrols run near the schools.
About twenty animals, and a request to remove them
The animals in all of this are the T1 troop, the only troop in the Seisho area. Kanagawa's fiscal 2026 supplement puts the Reiwa 7 count at about 20 monkeys, against a target size of 25, and the aim is to push the troop back toward Mt. Tenshōzan. The main range runs through Miyakami, Miyashita, Shirohori, Kajiya and Yoshihama in Yugawara, on into Manazuru, and across the border to Izumi in Atami. In summer the troop uses Yoshihama in particular. The same supplement records 88 cases of damage to daily life through the end of December 2025. The town's survey of that damage, and what to do when a monkey is in front of you, are in the T1 guide.
Captures, as the handout lists them: 2 monkeys in Reiwa 2 (2020), 2 in Reiwa 3 (2021), 1 in Reiwa 5 (2023), and 1 in February 2026. The target named there is 4 aggressive males. On the town's own page, updated on 2 February 2026, January to March 2026 is when the prefecture and the town jointly hire specialists to capture the especially aggressive monkeys.
Removing the whole troop is a formal request, and the handout lists who has made it. The town council sent a written opinion on 24 July 2025. The head of the district chiefs' council asked on 25 July 2025. The mayor asked on 27 August 2025. An LDP group in the prefectural assembly asked on 2 December 2025. Local business groups asked on 10 December 2025.
On 15 July 2026, the mayor hand-delivered a request to the prefecture. Town News, on 15 August 2026, reported that this was the first time the town had carried a request there in person.
They used to run
Kanagawa Shimbun, on 11 September 2025, reported the town's survey: 10,854 cases of damage to daily life in 2024, and 26,839 across 2022, 2023, and 2024. The paper quotes a woman in her sixties in Miyakami and a man in his seventies in Miyashita. They used to run when you came close. Now they do not run at all.
The fireworks, the sticks, and the phone number for the town's Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Division are in Firecrackers from the Town. If a monkey is on your street, start with the T1 guide.