The Marimos Go Home

The tenderhearted Japanese public was properly indignant. Tokyo's Mainichi Shimbun last week carried a tearjerking headline: MAMMA AND BABY MARIMO FOUND. The pair had been abandoned in a milk bottle on a train from Hokkaido. The Japanese love marimos, as pets and as national treasures, and they hate anybody heartless enough to abuse them.

A marimo is a plant, a kind of alga (Aegagropila sauteri), found in three small patches of water in Lake Akan on the northern island of Hokkaido. Their name means "ball of fur," and fair-sized specimens look like green, fuzzy tennis balls. What makes them so dearly beloved is their quaint behavior.

Gamboling Algae. As marimos lie on the bottom of Lake Akan (or of an aquarium in a Japanese gentleman's home), they exhale oxygen which collects as small bubbles entangled in their fur. When enough gas has accumulated, the marimo rises to the surface. It breaks the water with a gentle plop and rolls around languidly until most of the gas has escaped. Then it sinks to the bottom to collect more bubbles. This sportiveness, not common in algae, makes it an entertaining pet.

Marimos were discovered in Lake Akan in 1897, and Japanese biologists, including Emperor Hirohito, have studied them lovingly in every possible way. But no one has figured out why they thrive in so few places, or how they reproduce. One theory is that water currents of just the right kind are needed to bounce the marimos along the bottom and detach bits of fuzzy green stuff to grow into young marimos. No marimo lover, however skilled, has duplicated this process.

Just before World War II a marimo fad started, and thousands of the gamboling plants were snatched from Lake Akan. But the war intervened to save them from extinction, and in 1947 the Education Ministry's Committee for the Protection of Cultural Objects dug up an old law that proclaimed the marimos "a national treasure." It threatened fine or imprisonment for anyone who molested them.

The proclamation backfired. It advertised the marimos, and a second fad swept through Japan. Stealthy marimo-kapparai (marimo snatchers) haunted Lake Akan, diving into the water at night to kidnap the helpless creatures. Marimo smugglers brought them to Sapporo, the capital of Hokkaido, and Japanese tourists bought them furtively, paying up to $50. Biologists and nature lovers wrung their hands in anguish, but nothing effective was done. The little pets from Lake Akan were snatched almost to extinction.

The tide began to turn when Emperor Hirohito visited Lake Akan. He watched marimos gamboling, but when a local official fished one out to give to him, the Emperor drew back in horror. "They are national treasures," he said reprovingly.

No Questions Asked. Public sentiment proved more powerful than restrictive laws. Newspapers published pro-marimo editorials, and three months ago the Committee for the Protection of Cultural Objects went into action. Appealing by newspaper, radio and television, it begged marimo owners to liberate their pets. Marimos left at police stations, the committee promised, would be cared for tenderly and no questions asked.

The Japanese public responded. Prime Minister Ichiro Hatoyama set the example by returning his treasured marimo. Transportation Minister Takeo Miki visited Lake Akan in person and gave two marimos their freedom. A hotel owner in Tokyo apprehended a marimo snatcher with 150 captives. Out of hidden aquariums came hundreds more.

Marimos flocking back to their home in Lake Akan are cared for and carried without cost by Japan Air Lines, the Japanese National Railways and the Mitsui Steamship Co. One problem still remains. Some marimo lovers fear that newly freed marimos will contaminate Lake Akan with ills picked up in captivity. They urge that all returning captives get medical examinations. If sick, they should be restored to health before being liberated.

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