Hometown Stories
Stories about people, stories about life. Intimate portraits of people from around Japan, each leading diverse lives while enriching lives of others.
7. Rock Ptarmigans: Reviving the Divine Birds
0.0Apr 4, 2020
At altitudes of more than 2,500 meters in the mountains of central Japan, a 72-year-old ornithologist, Nakamura Hiroshi, takes on the challenge of saving rock ptarmigans, known as "divine birds," from extinction. Frequent human incursions have depleted their numbers across Japan. Spending more than 100 days a year in the mountains, he works on an unprecedented breeding project to restore a ptarmigan population to one of its former habitats. We follow Hiroshi in his quest to bring back these birds while questioning how humans can best interact with nature.