Hakodate Tropical Botanical Garden (Hot-Tubbing Monkeys) — Attraction in Hakodate

I went here when I was a kid in the early 2000s, and today I came back with my adult siblings and spent a nostalgic 45 minutes there. It costs only 300 yen per person to enter.

Please note: they are cash-only.

If you're looking for a multi-million dollar facility, this place is not for you. This is a small, no frills, aging facility. If you are uncomfortable seeing captive animals and zoos make you sad, this place is not for you. However, if you're looking for a mellow little stroll through a botanical garden, dip your feet in hot spring water, lock eyes with monkeys that you can toss food to, this is a nice place to spend a good 45 minutes exploring, right next to the ocean. Great for little kids as well. Lots of space to run around.

The entry fee is 300 yen, and if you want a little bag of food for the monkeys, it's 100 yen per bag. One bag is plenty. Some of the monkeys are very good at catching and it's impressive to watch. The monkeys will make it clear when they want you to toss them food, as they'll stare at you and sometimes clap to get your attention. Monkeys like the Japanese Macaque have a strict social hierarchy, and you'll observe that some monkeys won't attempt to grab food if a more senior / senpai monkey is near (monkeys higher up in the caste system get first access to food), so some monkeys are noticeably more plump than others.

There's a hidden little kids car area behind the botanical garden, past the bug room. Small kids and parents can ride little cars around a small lot.

Interacting with the monkeys was my favorite part. Alopecia is pretty common with Japanese macaques so don't be alarmed that some have thinning hair. There's also a bug area with both real bugs, and bugs that were preserved (there was a sign in Japanese that explained this). The botanical garden is warm, filled with numerous types of labeled flora, and well taken care of. Also, the ocean is very close, and it's quite relaxing just to look out at the waves.

If you have little kids or are looking for a mellow experience, for 300 yen per person, it's a great way to...

After reading all the negative comments and a handful praising the place, we decided to go with an open mind, so we boarded the tram to the Yunokawaonsen station and walked to the botanical gardens. After all, we wanted to see snow monkeys in their natural habitat.

It was shocking to see the monkeys in the small enclosure. There were many monkeys sitting around and probably more in the cement housing below the pool. Some of them looked sickly. They should close this place down and rehabilitate these monkeys and set them free in some reserve. They are DEFINITELY not in their natural habitat. There are no trees in the enclosure and I am not sure if these monkeys would be able to survive in the wild.

Some reviews commented on how the monkeys were losing fur because they were dipping too long in the hot water. That really broke my heart seeing how true it was.

I cannot fathom how this place is still allowed to operate and how stupid I was, paying to enter and support this unethical and inhumane act of keeping these monkeys captive in this...

All of the photos make it look like an environment in which the monkeys choose to bath in an onsen. Instead, the monkeys are hairless from having no warmth in their concrete enclosure except for the hot spring - so they choose between losing hair and being stripped down to their skin from spending an entire day in an onsen’s water to be warm, or lying on a concrete slab and being cold.

They look like they wish they were dead. It was truly upsetting to see. I was shocked when I got there, and I immediately felt a responsibility to alert animal welfare authorities. It is beyond cruel to see this. If the owner of the garden sees this: please, please reinvest into providing adequate care for those monkeys, provide them with more than concrete. and allow them the choice to bathe in the onsen as one of many options to keep warm. It would be a wonderful place to be if you did and you would make more money. I beg anybody to not go to this place and support such visceral and avoidable...