Izumi crane migration grounds

On the other hand, farmers in the area have had to set up guard nets around their fields so the cranes cannot damage crops.

They go up in a circular pattern and fly away to the north with the convection currents, which comes up by west or northwest wind on a clear day from early February to late March.

The breeding sites for the hooded cranes flying to Izumi are the marshes from Lake Baikal to the mid and upper stream of the River Amur.

The cranes also winter in the Yatsushiro basin in Yamaguchi, Daegu in Korea, the marshes of Goryeong and the Korean Demilitarized Zone, the Yangtze River in China and so on.

Originally, cranes passed the winter in marshes and paddies all over Japan, and were observed in many places throughout Satsuma (present-day Kagoshima) during the Edo period (1603-1868).

In 1955 the Defense Agency planned to reuse the old naval airport but was forced to give up because of a grassroots opposition campaign.