 Hello and welcome to another Japanese Giant Salamander video, but before we get into the meat and bones of this, I want to share something very special I've been working on with Richard for the past few months and that is this guy. This is the Japanese Giant Salamander plushie, part of the new Game and Beaver collection. It's by far the highest quality plushie I've ever made. There's little wiggly feetsies, a Game and Beaver logo 04 if you've been keeping up with the plushie collection all these years and it doesn't come in any plastic. In fact, when you get it, it comes in this amazing tote bag that's reusable and shows you a support for the Salamanders as well as a thank you card signed by me. So all the profits from these plushies are going to go towards sustainable Dyson, that's the charity that is going out of their way to protect the Japanese Salamanders like we showed in my previous video. It also doesn't shy away from the hardships that these actual real creatures face and I thought, you know, if you're going to be donating to help towards these creatures, you know, you want something to show why you're doing it. Alright, well with that out of the way, where's Richard? He should be arriving any second in one of Mr Yamano and she's Spaceships but no sign of it. Oh, there he is! Over here! Let the Japanese Salamander adventure begin then! We emerged from one of Mr Yamano and she's Mars Spaceships. Mars is part of an exhibition that he has on right now showcasing how he uses washi, a type of traditional Japanese paper that has been made in this area for over 1300 years. You've got to believe in this power. First believe in the light. After believing too much, you've believed in too much. Down the light, down the light. It's giving birth! As well as showcasing his other creations that we saw in the last video when we went to visit his workshop. They also had on display these other really creative uses of washi too. But we couldn't stay too long as we had something quite special planned before seeing the salamanders in the evening. On to the next adventure. Off we go! Waterfall training. This was also the first time I got to show Richard the salamander plushie in person. Look at him! He's adorable! Um, where you play as a dinosaur, there you go. There we are! Luckily, Richard is friends with the monk who looks after the shrine we're about to visit. We'll also be joined by a group of US marines. These guys have been helping Richard build stone ramps for the salamanders and clear away a lot of the branches and debris out of their waterways. So as a treat, we are participating in one of the old rituals of the Shugendo. But what is Shugendo, I hear you asking? Well Richard's actually practising it, so I'll let him explain. We do training in the world and they used to live for years, just living off nature and praying at the shrines and stuff. And part of that training is waterfall training, which is what we're going to do today. Richard also explained that a long time ago in Japan, originally all the religions were kind of a blend of each other, that includes Shinto, Buddhism and Shugendo. And the temple that we're in right now has a mixture of gods and saints from all those religions. In the centre, you have Fudomyo, a Buddhist messenger. You'll often find them near sacred waterfalls in Japan. And then Richard's favourite called Enogyoja, or as he calls them, who is believed to have been a real person and also the founder of Shugendo. But when modern Japan was formed, the governments decided that Shugendo was too superstitious and tried to close it all down, and the same went for Buddhism. But some of them are still around, this temple being one of them. So now it was time to begin the ceremony. And after that, we had to get changed into these really cool robes. Oh, as well as have introduction. Anyway, sorry I didn't introduce you, this is James, by the way. Yes, hello. Hello, James. Marines. I know. I held up. That's supposed to be it. Next there was a blessing at the shrine, as well as the waterfall itself had to be blessed by the monks. And then it was just a case of waiting in line for your turn to get wet. I like to see how it goes. Well, I like it. It's just a laugh, right? This is a bunch of people, you know? Having a good time, wearing something cool, sort of thing I can get behind. Until I'm in it, and then I'll probably regret it. And before I knew it, it was our turn to get wet. Oh, my cold. I have to say, it was mildly refreshing. When you get in, it's cold. Then, sort of with the chanting and the monotonous fall of the water hitting you, you sort of get into a zone, and you're like, actually, it's not so bad. But then there was taking it a step further and sitting down in the waterfall. And of course, I couldn't be shown up by the Marines. I'm feeling myself becoming the salamander, the long restator. Now, let's see if we can find some. Before checking our usual spots, Richard went out to check the weirs right next to the ocean, the very limit of the salamander's habitat. And in my last video, I received a few comments asking why we didn't pick up the salamanders that were stuck downstream and placed them somewhere further upstream. For a start, they're a protected species, which means touching them is actually illegal. Really, they need a way to get themselves up and further upriver. This kind of work is stuff that Richard's doing off his own back. He's not getting paid to do this is completely, you know, this is sustainable dice, and this is his charity. And this is the sort of efforts that we want to continue to try and give these Japanese giant salamanders the fighting trends that they really deserve. Fortunately, Richard didn't find any. He also elaborates on another problem when lifting the salamanders from one part of the river to another. You're just lifting between sections, right? So how do you know which one's got more fish? You might be thinking you're doing it a service because you're bringing it upriver, but then you might actually be locking it into a situation where it has no food. We also made a brief pit stop to try and find a viper. Let it be known that Richard's love for nature knows no bounds. Here he is, sticking his head into the drain to find that venomous snake. So we're now back at the place we were in the first video, the one that's a very disrupted environment next to the ocean. And we're just going to see, because last time we came here, I think maybe we found one. And we're just going to see if we can find these salamanders there before next going upstream to a better environment. It seems to be something going on. There might be just the light, but this is a good place to check or there might be one there. You know, this is as far down as you can get. If they get pushed further past this, it's no good for them. They're going to die. And again, you've got all this reed that is a byproduct of all of the pollution that's put in and nitrates. And also that's sucking up all the oxygen for everything else in here. Have you found some in here before? Yeah, we have a few days ago. However, this time, Richard couldn't find any salamanders. The problem is Richard has found salamanders in here in the past. So it's a case of did they fall further down with it? Or, you know, what's up with that? Did poachers get it? Did somebody move it upstream? Or did it succumb to the flow of the river and eventually get washed out to the ocean? We'll never know. So we pushed it further up the river to where things seemed more promising for the salamanders. So we have just arrived at the ginormous dam that you can barely see. It's over there. We ended the last video here. We walked all the way up the stream to see if we could find some. But hopefully, this time, we're going to go to the bottom bit of the dam where we couldn't go before and have a look to see if we can find these salamanders there. This is an area that Marines and I cleared the bamboo yesterday. Oh, right. You'll see just further down. Did you clear out in the river itself? Yeah. Oh, OK. We can study it earlier. And it's too much bamboo, makes the water murky, less oxygenated. That's the word I'm looking for. Before we had a chance to get into the river, Richard had spotted one. I found one. Salamander. I found one, James. Quite a big one. This one looked to be a female who really didn't want to be filmed by the camera. Because, yeah, I actually instructed the Marines yesterday. Oh, to make a... No, to not touch this one. Well, not a nest, but somewhere they hide. The salamander then used those branches to hide in. So we thought it best to leave her alone and see if we could find any other salamanders in the area. I felt as though this time I could see a lot more of the wildlife in this river. Of course, you have frogs and firebelly nutes that we saw last time, but also the prey that the salamanders would eat, like the various types of river fish, which is, of course, good news for the salamanders stuck in this part of the river. And then we entered an area that Richard and the Marines had removed a vast amount of bamboo from. This is a good stretch. We looked at it once before, but we've cleaned it out now. Oh, okay. Can you see that it was all bamboo? Remember, we were like... Yeah, yeah. We've cleared that right out now. And this is where I learned something. So bamboo is an introduced invasive species. So it was introduced from mainland Asia. It was used for housing, for basket making. But once plastic came along, everybody stopped using bamboo, so it's just gone crazy and taken over the countryside. So in other words, you're just getting rid of more pollution from the river system. Yeah, waste material. Yeah. That's not native as well, you know? So now we can have a good look in here. So good work, US Marines. And I. I do, yeah. I was there. If they can't beat the old guy, something's wrong. Every little nook and cranny, thanks to Richard and those Marines, this place was all covered. You couldn't see any bit at all. So the bamboo's been taken, it's been put up there that hasn't removed any habitat for the salamanders, because this is what they like. This is the rocks and places to hide, and that's still here. I was a salamander in the bag. Is it still good? The stuffed one, right? I do mean the stuffed one. Yes, can't buy the stuffed one in the bag that is helping these ones. All right, don't think there's anything in this stretch. So we'll walk a little bit up towards the dam, and there might be another one. They're having a quiet night, quiet night in tonight. You're not going to just go into the river, find the biggest salamander in the world. Modern television has got people thinking, why don't you just go in there and find the biggest one ever? This is the reality of it, is that a lot of it is just looking. Patience. And patience, yeah. Like I mentioned to you before, it's actually a much bigger thing when we find the small ones. Not this river, but the next valley over. We found a larvae, so about this big. Oh, right. Not much bigger than the five-bedded nutes that we're seeing, still had its gills. So that shows us that's less than two years old. So it's definite evidence that they're breeding in that area. And then even yesterday, when we cleared a blockage of a tunnel going under a road that was separating that important breeding area, just as we finished one about this big, which is, again, the second smallest one I've seen after that larvae came out. And again, so that's, you know, that one might be around seven, eight years old. Right, and it's only that big. It's quite small relatively. Yeah, absolutely. For a giant salamander, it's tiny. So that's for me, super exciting, encouraging. They're definitely breeding here. It's a very special habitat. We need some rules. We need some protection. Maybe even we might be able to buy the land and then if we control the land, then we're definitely not allowing bad actors in. And this is the tiny, giant salamander Richard is talking about. You might be wanting to see the big ones, but really these little guys are the most important. And this is what Richard and the Marines cleared out. A tunnel blocked by massive amounts of debris, now a vital connector for these salamanders to use and thrive in. And again, this is all on a voluntary basis. So my hat goes off to these guys and the amazing work they have helped Richard with. Further upstream, we spotted another female salamander. It's just love a myth. Ooh, get my good side. So the salamander won't go over that rock no matter what. Not no matter what, but if there's any way to get around it or, you know, just to say completely submerged, in my experience of observing them, that's what they'll choose. Then only a few meters up from her, we found this male, which we ended up calling Simon. Can you see how different the, just in what? Is that like 25 meters? How different the coloration is? Yeah, like the other one was completely dark colored. This one's got lovely yellowy color. Yeah, they don't, they don't like to come over the rocks unless they really have to. They'd rather reverse and stay completely under the water. James, what I'd like you to do is to take as clear as possible, is in a really good spot now. There's not much moving water and zoom in or get as close as possible and take a clear photograph of its head from above. Okay, and then what you're gonna do later is download an app called iNaturalist. So I recommend to all of your viewers to download this app. It will suggest to you what it might be, but you can also write Japanese giant salamander and choose that. Or what iNaturalist considers an expert will verify that later on. While Sustainable Dyson and Sustainable Dyson's collaborators are working on, is an AI program recognizes each individual by the patterns on his head. So the patterns on his head are like a fingerprint. So it's unique to each individual. And we use iNaturalist to do that as well. Because it's a protected species, iNaturalist will actually automatically hide the exact. Location. Oh, that's great. Whereas if you use iNaturalist to identify other species, which is great by the way, be it a flower, a tree, a snake, a bird or whatever, if you get a clear enough shot, it will record where you've seen it too. So you can build up your own kind of... Zepedia. Indeed, Zepedia, absolutely. Right, well, I definitely got a good shot of its head. Yeah, you couldn't get it in a better spot really here. There was a reason this salamander was staying so still. While Richard was telling me about the iNaturalist, something had just happened. Recognize this. I had just managed to capture this moment. An AI program, right? Wait. With that insane burst of speed, I had just recorded, be it very low quality, this salamander hunting. And if we slow down that footage, you can see the salamander lets the fish come right up to its face before it executes the attack. Then it holds onto the fish for a while before swallowing it. I had no idea I had actually captured this footage at the time. I remember hearing a splash, but I thought nothing of it. So when I was editing this video, this was a complete surprise. I was so happy. 40s, I'd guess. Okay. Let's say around 45, something like that would be my guess. The life expectancy of this kind of animal is maybe 80 to 100? Potentially. Potentially. You know, it's thought that they could live that long, but no one has taken, you know, no one 100 years ago identified one that we can go and lift down and go, oh, hello, it's you from 100 years ago. You're a nice model. It really is at the moment. Because it's like, if I stay still, they'll leave me alone. Yeah. Yeah. Now, look, you see the huge bite mark on it. Is that a bite mark? Yeah. So that's from another salamander. Oh, really? Yeah. I just thought that was like a marking or a birthmark or something. Sure. It could have just be when it was a bit smaller, just another salamander male or female could have just taken a bite at it. It's the males that guard the nest, right? Yes. It's not guaranteed because we don't know. I mean, I think it's a male because its jaw is quite white here. Right. Compared to its body size and length. The salamanders don't care if it's a fellow salamander or a fish or a snake or a pepper army. If it's meat like, it will take a bite out of it. Without taking it out to do proper measurements to get this close without it moving away is pretty rare to be honest. Like this is the perfect model. Simon. Is that what we're calling this one? Yeah. Simon. I think so. TV people especially want to portray it as some kind of river monster, right? There's anything but. It's just perfectly chilled out. I mean, if you're small enough to fit in its mouth. Then it's time to worry. And it would bite if I dangled my finger in front of its mouth for long enough. It's more like a peaceful dragon. Yes. So this salamander could have been here before that dam even existed. I'm 90% sure it got stuck here after the dam was made. And with that last salamander, it was time to call it a night. Or I should say that should have been the end of our adventure, but it wasn't. Some eagle eyed viewers may have realized that the salamander on my back had actually disappeared. That's because it kind of had. We'd actually even recorded the moment it had fallen off. So when I finally realized, I kind of had to tell Richard what had happened. Richard. Yes. We might have lost the plushy salamander. What? Luckily, Richard was able to find said salamander and also sent me a lovely picture of where he found it. He's got now proper salamander juices in him. Yeah, absolutely. There was one hump in him as I came along. No! Was it Simon? That randy bugger. So we were planning and doing a bit. Maybe, oh, we found him. But actually, it fell out. So we've just had to go hunt for it. Richard managed to find it. It took a lovely picture. So what started out was like, oh, it'd be a sketch. No, we actually did find this salamander dome. So when I got back to our guest house, I made sure to give her a lovely bath. There's something quite sad and poetic about this image, left alone and forgotten like the rest of its brothers and sisters, only the steady trickle of the stream to break the darkness of the night. The longer I look at it, the more profound this completely unintentional picture becomes. Anyway, even though I was only into Tory this time for a day, I had an amazing time. I met some great people, new and old, as well as enjoying everything this hidden gem of a place had to offer. And before you go, quick reminder, down in the description below, you can get your very own Japanese giant salamander plushie, all of the proceeds of which go to sustainable Dyson, not being Richard's charity to help preserve and protect these amazing endangered species. And with that, well, hope you liked the video and I'll see you later. Bye-bye.