TRAVEL

Wildlife experts in Japan say Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins appear to have taken up permanent residence in Kagoshima Bay on the south coast of Kyushu. Experts at Kagoshima City Aquarium said several years of field studies have confirmed two schools of some 50 dolphins are residing in the bay, Kyodo News reported. There are young dolphins in both schools, meaning the animals are probably reproducing in the bay off Japan's southernmost island, they said. (UPI)

A 44-year-old man temporarily uploaded footage of Kagoshima Prison on the video-sharing website YouTube, prison officials said. The man told reporters at the prison in Yusui, Kagoshima Prefecture, he took the footage just for fun on Dec. 21 when he was driving a truck to transport materials there and offered an apology. The footage has been removed from YouTube. Following the incident, the Justice Ministry on Wednesday ordered prisons across the nation to check all vehicles entering prison premises. It also ordered prisons to inspect drivers and their belongings when they enter prison buildings. (Japan Times)

Mount Sakurajima, an active volcano in Kagoshima Prefecture, explosively erupted 996 times in 2011, the most since record-keeping began in 1955, the local meteorological observatory said. At the 800-meter-high Showa crater, which erupted in June 2006 for the first time in 58 years, 994 eruptions were observed last year. Two eruptions were observed at the Minamidake vent, which is at an elevation of about 1,000 meters, the Kagoshima Meteorological Observatory said Sunday. Mount Sakurajima's previous record for eruptions was 474 in 1985. (Japan Times)

Yakushima Island off Kagoshima Prefecture in 1993 became the country's first natural site to be entered on UNESCO's World Heritage list, together with the Shirakami Mountain Range in northeastern Japan. Known for its many large cedar trees and hot springs, Yakushima is still enjoying a boom in tourism 18 years after registration. The increase in the number of visitors, however, has caused the island's environment to deteriorate, and the local town government has been exploring ways to make tourism compatible with environmental protection. The number of visitors to the famous Jomon Sugi cedar tree on the island's 1,396-meter Mount Miyanoura, the highest peak in the Kyushu region, reached about 90,000 in 2010, a threefold increase from 2000. (Japan Times)

The launch of a radar satellite aboard an H-IIA rocket has been pushed back a day after inclement weather was forecast for Sunday, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said Saturday. The launch from the Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture will now take place between 10:21 and 10:35 a.m. Monday. The radar satellite is part of a government program aimed at enhancing its intelligence-gathering capabilities, but is also said to be useful for collecting data on natural disasters. The program was launched after North Korea in 1998 fired a Taepodong-1 ballistic missile over Japan and into the Pacific Ocean. (Japan Times)

West Japan Railway Co. has spent ¥30 billion to double the number of bullet trains on its most profitable route to compete with airlines serving Kyushu. The company will add 10 new trains on the shinkansen line by the end of March, Managing Executive Officer Tatsuo Kijima said Thursday in Tokyo. The trains will make the 933-km trip from Osaka to Kagoshima using an extension that opened in March. "We are now in the position to rival the airlines," Kijima said. "Increasing the number of trains will make the journey even more convenient." (Japan Times)

Oriental white storks, a special protected species in Japan that once vanished from the wild in the 1970s, are making a gradual comeback, with some 1,000 sightings of the birds from Aomori to Kagoshima prefectures over the past six years. The presence of the birds is a sign that organic farming is functioning, as they feed on frogs and loaches that coexist with other living creatures in the rice paddies of organic farms. As such, they have been seen as "environmental barometers," offering hope to organic farmers, according to those familiar with the birds. (Mainichi)

Downpours since late Sunday have left one person dead and forced the evacuation of about 350 people on Amami-Oshima Island, Kagoshima Prefecture, police and firefighters said Monday. In the town of Tatsugo, Tatsushige Maeshima, 87, died after being rescued with his wife and son early Monday from their house, which collapsed after being hit by muddy water. Maeshima was taken to an evacuation shelter but died there, the police said. His wife and son were uninjured. About 137 mm of rain fell in from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday in the city of Amami. (Japan Times)

The government said Friday it will put a new intelligence satellite into orbit with an H-IIA rocket Sunday after postponing the launch twice because of a rocket glitch and a typhoon. The rocket is to be launched from the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency's Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture between 1:36 p.m. and 1:49 p.m. However, another passing typhoon in the region could delay the launch again, the government said. (Japan Times)

A sailor participating in a beach cleanup in Hawaii found a message in a bottle dropped in the ocean more than five years ago by a schoolgirl in Japan. Petty Officer Jon Moore stumbled upon the clear glass bottle Thursday at the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai. Inside, he found a note from Saki Arikawa, four origami flowers, and a photo of Arikawa's sixth-grade class in Kagoshima. (Japan Times)

Repeated eruptions from the Sakurajima volcano have produced large amounts of ash draping the city center Sept. 15, the Kagoshima Local Meteorological Agency said. Eruptions from the volcano overlooking the city of Kagoshima began on Wednesday morning, dumping 217 grams of ash per square meter (7 ounces per 10 square feet), the third-highest level of ash to fall since records began in 1994. Volcanic ash covered much of Kagoshima's Tenmmonkan entertainment and business district on Thursday morning, visibly forming clouds as cars drove through it and many pedestrians covering their faces with towels or surgical masks to avoid breathing it in. (majirox news)

Authorities on Wednesday cautioned residents in central and western Japan of torrential rain through Thursday, amid mudslides and flooding triggered by a record downpour pounding the Kyushu region in the southwest. The deluge forced the Kyushu Shinkansen Line to temporarily suspend services between Kumamoto and Kagoshima-Chuo stations. For fear of mudslides and flooding, evacuation advisories were issued at one point in Minamata, Kumamoto Prefecture, and some parts of Kagoshima Prefecture, affecting about 35,500 people. (Kyodo)

The Japanese government said Tuesday it will launch a new intelligence satellite with an H-2A rocket at the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency's Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture on Aug. 28. The government plans to complete an intelligence satellite system consisting of two optical and two radar satellites by fiscal 2012 ending March 2013 to gather intelligence for missile warning, disaster management and other purposes. (Kyodo)

Heavy rain triggered by an active rain front and low pressure system continued to fall in the Kyushu region in southwestern Japan on Sunday, leaving a man missing in Kagoshima Prefecture and leading a local government in Kumamoto Prefecture to briefly recommend residents to evacuate. The Japan Meteorological Agency continued to warn of mudslides and flooding, as heavy rain is expected to fall intermittently on parts of the archipelago's western half through early Monday. In the city of Satsumasendai in Kagoshima Prefecture, Mutsuo Arimura, a 78-year-old farmer, went missing after he went to his rice fields near his home on Saturday, the police said Sunday. (Japan Times)