Even in such apparently protected places as Shiga Kogen, where monkeys seem to thrive, threats to habitat continue. Big projects are chopping away at the mountain forests. Shiga Kogen is already a major winter resort area, riddled with ski slopes that have destroyed much of the monkeys' forest and disrupted their migration patterns. A new freeway has been proposed from Tokyo to Nagano, the nearest large city, to speed vacationers to the slopes. The freeway will blast through more monkey habitat.
Plans also are in the making to extend the high-speed bullet train into the area.
Suzuki is worried about the 1998 Winter Olympics, slated for Shiga Kogen and nearby monkey range. New ski courses will have to be built, and some of them, Suzuki says, will slice up the territory of at least one monkey troop. The concerns expressed by Suzuki and Sprague go beyond the immediate problem of macaque crop damage. They want the species protected in wild areas, too, and they believe that pressure has to be put on both local and national governments for better management of wild forests and for increased restrictions on development. Otherwise, monkeys nursing in the hot baths of Shiga Kogen are likely to become monkeys in traps awaiting, like their species, the moment of doom.