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Sanriku Fukkō NP, Miyagi
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Shizugawa Bay’s underwater meadows include tachi-amamo, a seagrass that can reach 7 m—about the height of a 2-storey building. Unlike seaweed, seagrass flowers underwater.
Surveys found that Shizugawa Bay octopus often eat abalone. Local guides suggest this unusual menu helps give the bay’s octopus its prized flavor and firm texture.
Cold-water ma-konbu and warm-water arame grow side by side here—an unusual overlap shaped by the Oyashio, Kuroshio and Tsugaru Warm Current, all influencing Shizugawa Bay.
After the 2011 tsunami, Togura growers rebuilt with just one-third as many oyster rafts. Oysters that had taken up to 3 years reached harvest in 1, and the farm earned Japan’s first ASC certification in 2016.
Japan’s farmed coho (silver) salmon story began in Shizugawa Bay: trial farming started in 1975, followed by full-scale production in 1976. The local catch is now branded Minamisanriku Salmon.
Each winter, 100 or more black brant—small geese that breed in Arctic tundra—visit Shizugawa Bay and feed on marine plants. The Ramsar record notes that 25 birds represent 1% of the relevant population.
Registered in 2018, Shizugawa Bay was Japan’s first Ramsar site recognized for its seaweed beds, and the first marine Ramsar site in Tohoku. Its underwater habitats include 4 distinct meadow types.
Tsubakijima is cloaked in evergreen tabunoki trees, near the species’ northern wild limit on Japan’s Pacific coast. Some trunks reach 4.66 m around; the grove became a natural monument in 1966.
Local legend says an ancestor found a sick celestial maiden and a puppy on nearby Takeshima; despite care, the maiden died, and 2 memorial mounds were raised. The park plan lists sea kayaking by the island’s sea cave.
Tsubakijima is one of only 6 seaweed-bed monitoring sites in Japan’s Environment Ministry Monitoring Site 1000 network, where researchers track coastal ecosystems over time.
