Japanese Serow

So when we were talking to Jackson and Bully at the pub, they told us of how they had seen a sad bear while out snowboarding in one of the further out runs. I didn’t know that Japan had bears so was pretty impressed. Apparently they thought it was a goat at first, but when they got closer decided it was a sad bear. This caused Rachael to freak out a little bit that we would run into a bear and she would be mauled.

Later, when we saw the trail map for Iwatake they had indications of wild Japanese Serow areas, and the picture looked kind of like a goat. So we asked reception at the hotel whether Japan had any bears, and she said no that it definitely would have been a Serow.

At the snow monkeys they had a hut with stuffed animals, and the above picture is of a stuffed Serow. While not a bear, I still wish I had seen one in the wild.