‘Hinata no Mori’ offers gibier without odour and solves animal damage

The company that delivers gibier to SEN.RETREAT is Hyukaya Corporation (Kamiyoshiya, Tanabe City), which was set up by members of local farmers to combat beast damage. The key industries in the Kami-Hoyo area of Tanabe City are the cultivation of plums and oranges, but in recent years the area has been plagued by animal damage. After considering whether there were any measures to reduce the drastically increased population and avoid wasting lives, it was decided to attract a facility where gibier can be dismantled and personnel who can do so, and the dismantling facility ‘Hinata no Mori’ was built in 2018.

Ask people involved in gibier treatment about animal damage.

We spoke to Kazunori Okamoto, head of Hyugaoya, and Toshiyuki Yukawa, a dismantler.

The hardest thing about farming is fighting animal damage.

Please introduce Hyuugaoya and tell us about the animal damage you have caused so far.
Okamoto-san: Alongside my family business of growing mandarin oranges, I am also the representative of a company called Hyuga-ya, which provides business solutions to problems in farming such as animal damage.
Here in the Kami-Hoyo area of Tanabe City, the main industries are the cultivation of plums and mandarins, but the most difficult part of farming is preventing animal damage.Deer eat the shoots of the plum trees, which makes the growth of the plum trees worse.Also, mandarin oranges are eaten by wild boars, and if a boar weighing more than 100 kg gets on a tree, it will break.We had to solve this somehow or we would not be able to farm ourselves.

How have you tackled animal damage?
Okamoto-san: I got a hunting licence for trapping, set up a hunting team and started going into the mountains to set traps.In the first year alone, we caught about 120 boars and deer, but at that time we didn’t have this gibier processing facility and we didn’t know Yukawa-san, the dismantler.So what did we do with the prey back then? We had to beat them to death with a baseball bat.When you hit them, boars and deer would squeal very loudly and you would be left with a feeling.They all gradually became mentally tough.

Together with the understanding of the local population.

What did you do from there?
Okamoto-san: After thinking about how to reduce the drastically increased population while at the same time not wasting lives, we decided that we needed a facility where gibier could be dismantled and personnel who could do it.That was when I met Yukawa-san.He, too, had just decided that he wanted to set up a dismantling facility and sell the product.
He also thought that local residents would object to a dismantling facility because dead individuals would be brought in.But there were many people involved in agriculture, and they all readily accepted the idea, saying that it would help protect the farming industry.

Have there been any changes in the animal damage situation?

Okamoto-san: Since the creation of the Hinata no Mori, the number of beast attacks in the area has decreased by 80%. And the number of people who take out hunting licences for trapping has increased a lot. There is a growing awareness that we should leave the dismantling to professionals and do it ourselves where we can.

I heard that the wild game that Yukawa-san cuts is superb.

Okamoto-san: When hunters and farmers capture deer and boars in their traps, Yukawa-san immediately rushes to the scene to stop them. This is his main characteristic. I consider him one of the top three dismantlers in Japan. That is how great his technique is.

Yukawa: Most gibier is inherently tasty, but gibier that has been processed without proper knowledge of how to bleed it, for example, will have a bad smell. Most people stab the gibier through the heart, but I cut the carotid artery in the neck and drain the blood while the heart is still beating. This way the blood is completely different. I am also careful when shooting with a gun. For example, if I shoot in the shoulder, I can’t eat the shoulder roast. If you hit the head, the bullet will go through to the buttocks and everything will be ruined. It is important how you hit the temples.

How many wild game do you process on a daily basis?
Yukawa: In 2021, there were particularly many, and we caught 100 head in November.We get calls from many different places, so we haven’t had a break for over a month…
Ms Okamoto: That’s how much everyone relies on Yukawa-san!

SEN.RETREAT Message to guests.

Please tell us the last message you would like to give to the guests of SEN.RETREAT TAKAHARA who come from outside Wakayama Prefecture and Tanabe City.
Okamoto-san: As a region, we have been very successful in our measures against animal damage.However, the most important thing is not to make deer and boars extinct.We aim for co-existence and co-prosperity, rather than unnecessarily capturing them.
Now that the damage has decreased considerably, we only capture beasts that come into areas where people live and farm.
It is humans who say ‘they are disturbing us because they eat our crops’, and it is humans who have created such a situation.Abandoned farmland is increasing due to the ageing of the population, but it is natural that deer and boars come down on land that is not cared for by humans.Beast damage is, on the other hand, also the responsibility of humans.We want people to enjoy the gibier we have processed in light of these circumstances.We hope that through gibier, people can feel that humans live by receiving life.