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Saikai NPKujukushima, Nagasaki
Claim this place to tell your story your way.
The stuffed bug at the information desk is the center’s unofficial mascot: an oceanic water strider found locally. Researchers have recorded 3 kinds around Kujukushima, and the center lists all 3 as threatened.
A Sasebo City FAQ links the name to a Hakushu poem told as local lore: 99 islands hold a drinking party, but the sake-fetching island gets left behind alone in the harbor. The real count is 208.
Kujukushima means “99 islands,” but the center lists 208. The count is surprisingly strict: an island must stay above water at the year’s highest tide and support land plants—bare rocks don’t qualify.
A 2000 survey of uninhabited Tokoi Island found tobikazura, a rare purple-flowering vine; the visitor center records it as Japan’s second wild site. How the plant arrived there remains a mystery.
The islands’ sheltered inlets nurture Kujukushima oysters—small, glossy, and rich-tasting. Sasebo City says these local oysters also headline winter menus and a grilling festival at Pearl Sea Resort, beside the center.
Horseshoe crabs still come ashore to spawn along the Kujukushima coast. These “living fossils” need sandy shore, mudflat, and sea close together—a trio of habitats found around the archipelago.
Kujukushima’s muddy shores shelter an air-breathing sea slug, Onchidium hongkongensis, described by the center as nearly extinct on Japan’s four main islands. A tiny white clam shares this unusual habitat.
Of Kujukushima’s 208 islands, just 4 are inhabited: Kuroshima, Takashima, Mae-jima, and Todomari. The center’s island tally makes the small number of resident communities striking.
The center’s work goes beyond exhibits: documented surveys with universities and local government checked seawater twice a month and tracked shirouo (ice goby) spawning in small island streams.
Sasebo’s Kujukushima Day falls every September 19: the city declared it on 1999-09-19 as part of its “Year of Kujukushima,” turning the island scenery into a community reminder to cherish nature.
Twice a year, the center’s staff hand-build interactive nature exhibitions, and some displays are designed to be touched. The hands-on stories are created in-house around Kujukushima and its wildlife.
