Horses

Memory of a Famous Ranch that Supported an Ideal World
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The wind from the sea blows through the gently undulating meadow. The lovely wildflowers swaying quietly along the path of the wind tell us how it travels…. Visitors from Bettoga Station on the Hanasaki Line will encounter a picturesque landscape filled with such beautiful poetic sentiment. This place, called Fureshima Marsh, was once home to a magnificent ranch. It was the Sato Ranch, established by Mr. Sato Tousaku, who organized the Nemuro Livestock Cooperative at the dawn of horse breeding in Eastern Hokkaido and led its prosperity. At Fureshima, the strong sea breeze brings salt to the green grass that the horses feed on, and in winter, it blows away the snow that has accumulated on the grass. Fureshima was an excellent pasture where horses could be raised year-round, even in the north. There were about 120 mares and two or three stallions in this beautiful meadow at its peak.

Sato Ranch, also known as Fureshima Ranch, had a deep connection with Yururi Island since this ranch supplied horses to Yururi Island. Mr. Shobayashi Shoji, a resident of Yururi Island, brought a mare to the island around 1951 or 1952 to bring the collected kelp up to the drying ground on the cliff. This is said to be the first of the Yururi Island horses that have continued today. Then, around 1958, the Sato family brought in a horse to rent to the residents. About a decade later, a stallion was brought in from the Sato Ranch. The period when people lived on Yururi Island was not very long. In 1971, the Shobayashi family, the last family on the island, left and only the horses remained on the island. It was Sato Ranch that protected and nurtured those horses.

After the inhabitants left, Yururi Island had several elements that made it ideal as a natural pasture. The Ainu Sasa Nipponica, which the horses feed on, covers the island’s ground so thickly that the horses do not need to be fed. The sea breeze carries salt to the bamboo grasses and prevents snow from falling on them, similar to the Fureshima Marsh on the opposite shore. Moreover, since the island is separated from the surrounding land, there is no need to fence the horses in or keep an eye on them to prevent them from escaping. However, to avoid inbreeding, it was necessary to change the stallions periodically. Also, to manage the ranch, male yearlings born on the island had to be taken away from the island to be sold at an auction. The skills of Mr. Sato Tousaku and his team contributed significantly to preserving this utopian environment for the horses.

Sato Ranch, a pioneer of horse breeding in Nemuro, went to Kunashiri and Shikotan Island to purchase horses before the war. These islands produced a lot of horses similar to the Japanese Kushiro and Sojo-Kushiro breeds. The means of getting the horses out of the islands was a unique procedure developed from Sato Ranch’s extensive experience: catching the horses running on land with a lasso, towing them in a small boat to prevent water from getting into their noses, and then loading them onto a large ship to cross the sea. Applying these methods made it possible to move the horses in and out of Yururi Island.

Sato Tousaku, whose lifework was to improve horse breeds, described his ideal horse as “a relatively small, bright-eyed horse with strong limbs.” The word “bright-eyed” sounds a little surprising. He was using it to mean “an honest, intelligent horse.” I guess you could say that honesty and intelligence show in the eyes. Shobayashi Taizo (passed away in 2021), son of Shobayashi Shoji, who was the longest living resident of Yururi Island, reminisced about the horses that lived on the island: “As long as people didn’t do anything wrong, the horses were always kind, obedient and reliable.”

This is just what Sato Tousaku had in mind for his ideal horse. In other words, the Sato Ranch was indeed a utopia for creating ideal horses. The horses that are proof of this were indeed alive on Yururi Island. And now, the descendants of those horses are still here on Yururi Island.