Hokkaido Red Foxes - Hokkaido Photo Tours

A few years ago, during the annual Japan Dreamscapes Hokkaido photography workshop tour, our team was driving in a convoy of three vehicles.  Our workshop leader was in the lead vehicle, as he always is for spotting wildlife and landscapes.  He became incensed when he looked in my rearview mirror and saw that the vehicle of a one time co-leader stopped to capture a few snapshots of a fox.  The one time co-leader ordered one of my Japanese pro drivers to stop their vehicle on a small bridge between two guard rails on a hilly section of a major roadway.  And then clients got out of the vehicle to capture some images of the Ezo Red Fox.  The JDS Hokkaido photo workshop leader had spotted the fox, but he kept on going, as he knew it was not safe, and he could tell this fox was only looking for handouts.  As soon as he saw the other vehicle had stopped, he quickly turned his SUV around, stopped just before the guard rails, jumped out, quickly walked over to them, and told everyone to either walk 10 meters down the road to a safe location or get in the SUV, and he told the driver to move fast.  He gave them no time to think or reply.  The reason he knew it was not safe was that about seven years ago, there was a group of tourists who stopped on a bridge on a major roadway in Hokkaido, and out of nowhere two semi trucks came barreling down the road and could not stop; the trucks plowed into each other, the tourists, and their vehicle.  That accident made national and international news, and he remembers feeling sad when he heard about it.  When he stopped to tell them to move, he even quickly made a snowball and hurled it at the fox to move, but the fox was so dependent on human handouts that he hardly budged an inch. When everyone was in a safe location, he gave them a couple of minutes to take their photos; later that day, he told them about the accident that occurred a few years before, and there were no more unexpected stops on any major roadways to capture photos of any of Hokkaido’s wildlife or landscapes after that incident, unless it was safe.