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Sanriku Fukkō NP, Miyagi
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In Shizugawa Bay, brent geese sometimes get eelgrass without diving: GPS-tracked birds ate loose eelgrass floating up—or snatched it from Eurasian coots when the diving birds surfaced.
Because brent geese arrive during wakame-farming season, people suspected them of eating the crop. A local bird surveyor checked their droppings; the evidence strongly suggested the geese were innocent.
Five geese satellite-tagged at Oya Beach, Miyagi, in 2014 stayed close to the Sanriku coast during winter. In April, they headed north toward eastern Hokkaido and Kunashir, sometimes crossing open sea directly.
The 2011 tsunami swept away offshore aquaculture rafts and ropes that had been feeding sites. As land subsided, algae grew on harbor ramps washed by waves, and geese shifted to this unexpected new buffet.
Shizugawa’s winter geese share their seascape with local aquaculture: GPS-tracked birds foraged for seaweed around fishery rafts and harbors, while the bay supports livelihoods including wakame and oyster farming.
Cold Oyashio and warm Kuroshio and Tsugaru currents all influence Shizugawa Bay. Their mix helps 208 species of seaweeds and seagrasses thrive—including plants that feed wintering geese.
Shizugawa Bay is Japan’s southernmost wintering ground for brent geese. Its 5,793-hectare marine area was registered as a Ramsar wetland in 2018—proof that an internationally important “wetland” can be a bay, not a marsh.
Around 200 brent geese wintered in Shizugawa Bay around its 2018 Ramsar registration; counts later reached a seasonal peak of 467 in winter 2023–24, according to a local bird surveyor’s account.
At nearby Oisehama, observers saw brent geese drink and bathe where a tiny stream reaches the beach. Birders asked that seawall plans preserve both the shore and its freshwater flow—small features that matter to wintering birds.
A white ring encircles the brent goose’s dark neck like a necklace. It is the only goose that regularly winters in Japan at sea; in Minamisanriku, about 400 arrive from Russia’s Arctic coast from late October to April. The species became a National Natural Monument in 1971.
