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Minami Alps NP, Yamanashi
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Ko-Senjo is one of the glacier-carved bowls in the Southern Alps, Japan’s southernmost region with surviving traces of glaciers. The Environment Ministry dates the region’s high-alpine glacial landforms to about 20,000 years ago.
Ko-Senjo, Daisenjo, and Yabusawa cirques cut into the same summit zone from different sides. A geomorphology study describes their meeting as sharpening part of the crest into an arête—a narrow, knife-like ridge.
A Ministry of the Environment survey recorded a Japanese rock ptarmigan on the ridge near the cirque entrance—and noted it had also been seen there during a July survey. Researchers suggested the repeated sightings meant it lived nearby.
During a dawn survey on August 1, 2012, researchers counted 17 male deer in Ko-Senjo Cirque. They saw the animals resting beneath dwarf stone pines and feeding on alpine plants—a surprising sight in this high, fragile habitat.
In 2013, Ko-Senjo became the site of an experimental deer-cull trial described in local reporting as Japan’s first in the alpine zone. At the time, helicoptering 10 deer down was estimated to cost about ¥1 million.
