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djsmnc
Joined: 20 Jan 2003
Location: Dave's ESL Cafe
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 Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2004 10:26 pm Post subject: |
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| I've seen some rats, cockroaches, and cats with scars and/or no tails eating food scraps on the street. Also pigeons, plenty of them... Mind you, I live in Seoul, and haven't really ventured into the rural areas of Korea... |
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schwa
Joined: 18 Jan 2003
Location: Yap
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| Posted: Fri Apr 09, 2004 3:22 am Post subject: |
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I'm not a deep wilderness explorer by any means (bad knees) but it doesnt take a lot of initiative to encounter Korean wildlife. On first impression the woods might seem bereft of critters but in fact theres a lot of subtle activity. Even just a few meters off the beaten path if youre calm, solo, & attentive it will find you. Maybe some bizarre bug, lizard, or snake. Maybe a pair of colorful songbirds will come near & perform. What a treat when a mammal appears.
Chipmunks might not be rare but I really like them. Seated at the foot of my favorite tree in Korea (a gnarled 800-year-old pine by a small temple on a peak in Seoraksan) one day last fall, a family of them played around me as if I wasnt there. I never venture into the woods without discovering something delightful or new. Receptivity is the key.
Dr Buck: Thanks for the informative post. I followed up your suggestions & it was indeed almost certainly a mustela sibiricus (Siberian weasel) I spotted. Everything I dug up on them fits except theyre said to be nocturnal & this one was active in broad daylight. |
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Zed
Joined: 20 Jan 2003
Location: Shakedown Street
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| Posted: Fri Apr 09, 2004 4:08 am Post subject: |
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| But for most of us, Schwa, we are a little more removed from the more secluded wilderness areas. When a first came to Korea 3 years ago, I lived in Suwon and went hiking on Gwangyosan near Suwon almost every weekend. I saw a squirrel once. I did see a lot of new birds there but even these weren't exactly in abundance. Why didn't I go further afield. I had zero Korean skills to try to figure out bus connections. I got no help from anyone at my school in this respect. I didn't use a network such as this at the time and so was essentially stuck with what I could walk to or take short bus trips to. Once you have some of this down pat, you are right, it shouldn't be that hard to find. |
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schwa
Joined: 18 Jan 2003
Location: Yap
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| Posted: Fri Apr 09, 2004 4:36 am Post subject: |
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| Point taken Zed but Gangwondo, though relatively open & 'natural,' is far from pristine wilderness. Point I was getting at is nature perseveres in even small pockets of green space & in fact some of my coolest discoveries have been in nondescript bits of scrub out back of apartment complexes. Any treey space will do, even in downtown Seoul (though I doubt you'd spot a fabled goral!), still I think you could find some small affirmations of nature. Comes down to the frame of the observer. |
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captain kirk
Joined: 29 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Fri Apr 09, 2004 4:51 am Post subject: |
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Neoguri, eh? That's the name, then, for those racoon dogs. I haven't seen one running around yet but I've found the remains of two. The heads, paws, tailbone, with the rest of them gobbled down.
Saw a deer and it was small, springing away. About the size of a hamster. Seriously, antelope-sized.
Wild pig I've 'seen'. It was a meadow of that tall dried grass which is like reed. And something took alarm and went ploughing through the reeds and into the woods. Poweful, like a little barrel bulleting headlong, a log of weight and force pushing it along. So I think it was a wild pig, then. |
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Zed
Joined: 20 Jan 2003
Location: Shakedown Street
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| Posted: Fri Apr 09, 2004 5:24 am Post subject: |
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That's how the dictionary translates raccoon. No distinction in the Korean language? |
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Cuatemoc
Joined: 06 Mar 2003
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| Posted: Fri Apr 09, 2004 6:09 am Post subject: |
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I was fishing on Bukcheon in between Jinburyeong and Ganseong when I flushed a pair of wild boar. My first thought was 'Those are funny looking dogs', next thought was 'WOW!" By the time I realized I should be scared, they were gone. I've seen most of the big mammals of the western hemisphere from Alaska to Ecuador and that ranks as one of the really cool sightings of my life. ****, that ranks as one of the great moments of my life.
Sure, we (humans) have done a pretty good job of scrubbing the mammals from the Korean Peninsula over the last 5000 years, but I don't know if it can compare to what we managed in a generation or so on the Great Plains or in the Central Valley of California (ever heard of a Tule Elk, let alone seen one?). I grew up in another place where the symbol of the republic -the Bear Republic - is extinct. How 'bout them pigeons? |
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Rhoddri
Joined: 26 Jan 2003
Location: Seoul
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coolsage
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: The overcast afternoon of the soul
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| Posted: Fri Apr 09, 2004 7:26 am Post subject: |
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| schwa wrote: |
| Point taken Zed but Gangwondo, though relatively open & 'natural,' is far from pristine wilderness. Point I was getting at is nature perseveres in even small pockets of green space & in fact some of my coolest discoveries have been in nondescript bits of scrub out back of apartment complexes. Any treey space will do, even in downtown Seoul (though I doubt you'd spot a fabled goral!), still I think you could find some small affirmations of nature. Comes down to the frame of the 'bserver. |
Schwa, I think 'small pockets' says it all. The locals have paved over what was not much of a paradise to begin with, and put up a parking lot. The marshes, the migration layover at the 'fabulous' new Incheon Airport, gone. The tidal flats there are now nothing more than a residue of heavy metals from the construction. A hundred thousand cranes (a bird apparently revered at one time in this land) now have nowhere to go during the path of their migration, and will surely perish. Yes, one needs to look at 'small pockets', because they're getting smaller, and the locals, frankly, don't give a damn. "Drain this marsh. Dredge this pond. Take this hill away, so that we can build, build, build". A karma that is waiting to bite these people in their collective butt. (Schwa, it's a long way from cougars strolling through the lobby of the Empress Hotel). |
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rapier
Joined: 16 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Fri Apr 09, 2004 7:25 pm Post subject: |
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| coolsage wrote: |
| schwa wrote: |
| Point taken Zed but Gangwondo, though relatively open & 'natural,' is far from pristine wilderness. Point I was getting at is nature perseveres in even small pockets of green space & in fact some of my coolest discoveries have been in nondescript bits of scrub out back of apartment complexes. Any treey space will do, even in downtown Seoul (though I doubt you'd spot a fabled goral!), still I think you could find some small affirmations of nature. Comes down to the frame of the 'bserver. |
Schwa, I think 'small pockets' says it all. The locals have paved over what was not much of a paradise to begin with, and put up a parking lot. The marshes, the migration layover at the 'fabulous' new Incheon Airport, gone. The tidal flats there are now nothing more than a residue of heavy metals from the construction. A hundred thousand cranes (a bird apparently revered at one time in this land) now have nowhere to go during the path of their migration, and will surely perish. Yes, one needs to look at 'small pockets', because they're getting smaller, and the locals, frankly, don't give a damn. "Drain this marsh. Dredge this pond. Take this hill away, so that we can build, build, build". A karma that is waiting to bite these people in their collective butt. (Schwa, it's a long way from cougars strolling through the lobby of the Empress Hotel). |
Thats exactly it. nothing so insignificant as a healthy natural environment must be allowed to stand in the way of the glorious Korean building boom.
Even in the urban areas now, you can see that every river is being turned into a lifeless concrete tough, for example- removing any riverside vegetation and wildlife.
Once again, check out my favorite korean wildlife website here:
http://wbkenglish.com/ |
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intergalactic
Joined: 19 May 2003
Location: Brisbane
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| Posted: Sun Apr 11, 2004 4:34 pm Post subject: |
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| coolsage wrote: |
| The locals have paved over what was not much of a paradise to begin with, and put up a parking lot. |
I saw a tree preserved in a tree museum on the weekend. And on my way home, several pink hotels! I think the Joni Mitchell song was mistakenly taken as an instructional how-to-run-a-country message. |
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khyber
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Compunction Junction
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| Posted: Mon Apr 12, 2004 9:38 pm Post subject: |
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| locals have paved over what was not much of a paradise to begin with, and put up a parking lot. |
If people seriously think that Korea has turned into some megagopolis of man raping nature and a constantly moving roller flattening everything in the path, consider leaving seoul more often.
I live in a city of 180,000 people. I can walk 50 minutes behind my house, aka over the mountain and it's a different planet. I can take a 45 minutes bus ride and i'm in the middle of nowhere.
Get out of cities and you can find "not so small" pockets of nature out there.
You can guess that contruction on reclamation land (esp. to the likes of an airport) is going to cause some serious disruptions in the surrounding ecosystem....but these are not the only tidal flats in Korea.
Businesses and developement are causing serious problems in Korea, but to say something as sweeping as "small pockets" may cause someone to think of the wrong impression; i mean...this country is small to begin with.
It's got a population density of what...1100/sq m |
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rapier
Joined: 16 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Mon Apr 12, 2004 10:07 pm Post subject: |
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| khyber wrote: |
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| locals have paved over what was not much of a paradise to begin with, and put up a parking lot. |
If people seriously think that Korea has turned into some megagopolis of man raping nature and a constantly moving roller flattening everything in the path, consider leaving seoul more often.
I live in a city of 180,000 people. I can walk 50 minutes behind my house, aka over the mountain and it's a different planet. I can take a 45 minutes bus ride and i'm in the middle of nowhere.
Get out of cities and you can find "not so small" pockets of nature out there.
You can guess that contruction on reclamation land (esp. to the likes of an airport) is going to cause some serious disruptions in the surrounding ecosystem....but these are not the only tidal flats in Korea.
Businesses and developement are causing serious problems in Korea, but to say something as sweeping as "small pockets" may cause someone to think of the wrong impression; i mean...this country is small to begin with.
It's got a population density of what...1100/sq m |
Partly true...but the fact is that the areas which are the most valuable to wildlife, such as Saemangeum tidal mudflats, are being destroyed. Of course there are other mudflats (every one of them earmarked for reclamation in korea)- but Saemangeum in particular is the most extensive and ecologically important, this side of the yellow sea.
not all mudflats are the same. saemangeum has a unique type of mud and substrate, which is scientifically proven to support the highest density and greatest diversity of species. Birds are very fussy, and habitat specific.
I could go on... but just take it from me...the whole money-driven and corrupt korean construction industry is cynically concreting over every last charming/ wildlife-significant area of this country, in the name of more jobs and government money- for the ugliest and most needless of building projects. |
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rapier
Joined: 16 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Tue Apr 13, 2004 1:03 am Post subject: |
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The spoon-billed sandpiper, a charming bird that has graced the world for millenia, is down to its last 2000 individuals. It relies on the estuary at saemangeum for its survival, on its several thousand mile migration route around the world.
It is about to be snuffed out forever. One of its last known feeding areas, at Kunsan, is being bulldozed into a golf course as we speak.
The world is becoming a more barren and less delightful place every day. Where do we draw the line? when the very last elephant or tiger is eliminated? |
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