My name is Noah, a boy capybara residing in Japan. I’ve just debuted as a Toyota car commercial film character, playing a pet capybara of a Japanese family which owns the car. The car is the Toyota Noah—but I’ve not got any reimbursement from Toyota and I [...]]]> Hi everybody who is supposed to be a capybara lover,

My name is Noah, a boy capybara residing in Japan. I’ve just debuted as a Toyota car commercial film character, playing a pet capybara of a Japanese family which owns the car. The car is the Toyota Noah—but I’ve not got any reimbursement from Toyota and I have nothing to do with selling this car to you—I’m not being bribed.

Check this out!

http://toyota.vo.llnwd.net/e1/toyota/noah/index.html

Oops, of course, it’s written in Japanese, which I understand perfectly. For the people who have a problem with Japanese, I’ll try to explain the Website page by page in English.

When you get in the URL above, you’ll see me sitting in my room with a laptop computer. Please come in, but make sure you take off your shoes before entering my house. It’s a Japanese custom to separate outside and inside by taking the shoes on and off. You’ll notice that my room is in typical Japanese style—I can sit on the floor that is covered with tatami mats, which are made of straw-like plants…you can tell that I’d really love that! At the right corner of the room, I laid my futon and pillow folded neatly. Japanese people unfold this kind of futon on the tatami mats when they sleep. It’s kind of nice as we can save space compared to the case in which we use a bed. Formally, the futon is supposed to be stored back in the closet to its right. That way, the space is absolutely empty during the day. The doors to the closet are sliding doors, which are also space-saving. The table is really low, which is suitable for those sitting on the yellow sitting pillows on the floor (called zabuton, which means “sitting futon”) while drinking green tea from the tea pot and cup on the table. You can notice that somebody is hiding in the closet and making noise—that is a famous baseball coach, who actually did my voice this time.

If you drag the mouse onto me, there is a caption says “click here and there in my room” and you can do it. There are 7 places that you can click: #1 the calendar, #2 the TV, #3 the radio, #4 the books, #5 the computer, #6 the window and the last, #7 the sliding door.

First, click the calendar for today’s twittering—I twitter on things every day, so if you click on a certain day on the calendar, you will play a video with my twitter for that day. Sorry, that is in Japanese and it’s too much to translate so I will skip this…

Second, click the TV, which shows you the making of the TV commercial in which I am featured, in four parts. The upper left part is how I observe my owner’s family; in the video I am pushing the busy family to go on a trip by giving them the car key. The upper right shows how I acted during the making of the commercial. The lower left is an interview with the actress who played the mother in the family. The lower right is an interview with a baseball coach who did my voice.

Third, click the radio, which plays a radio commercial with my voice.

Fourth, click the books, and my profile will be displayed. To the left there are my pictures, which can be displayed in larger form by clicking on the thumbnails. To the right is my detailed profile. For the people who don’t understand Japanese, I will try to translate. It says that my age is a secret, my gender is male, and my profession is a commercial film character named Noah. It also says that: my hobbies are bathing in a hot spring and feng shui; my talent is twittering; my favorite thing is going out on the weekend; and my voice is played by the coach of a famous professional baseball team. The pentagon is an analysis of my character. From the top of the pentagon and clockwise are: level of preference for the outdoors; promptness; obesity; sense of humor; and degree of wicked tongue. You can tell the degree of each by the number.

Fifth, click the computer, and you will see and hear the mother of the family explaining why the mother of the family decided to buy the Noah (the car, not the capybara). You need a Flash player for this.

Six, click the window, and there will be a page in which you can enter text to boast about your family, your Toyota Noah, etc. If this is well written, you have a chance to get a stuffed capybara character, Kapibara-san, from Toyota. However, this is mostly for Japanese users.

Seven, the sliding door will show you the famous baseball coach—Katsuya Nomura—who did my voice, as I told you above.

(Thanks to Chie Gough, who translates Capybara Madness into Japanese, for conducting this wonderful interview with Noah Capybara!)

(PS: I wonder how I can become the US Spokescapy?)

(PPS: I think Noah is going to steal my title of “World’s Most Famous Capybara.” I guess I’m okay with that.)

(PPPS: Even though Noah says his name is a secret, I estimate he is about four months old. Those who read this blog can probably make a similar estimation based on Noah’s apparent weight and the fact that his nose is very pink.)

Of course I hate the idea of anyone deliberately harming one of my relatives. It is actually hard to imagine since my owner loves me so much [...]]]> Seems that this year there was a bumper “crop” of capybaras killed for consumption during the Catholic Lent, the 40 days leading up to Easter. Link to article in Spanish.

Of course I hate the idea of anyone deliberately harming one of my relatives. It is actually hard to imagine since my owner loves me so much and I have so many adoring fans from all of the world. How could anyone do this to us? And worse is that this is not being done in a “sustainable” way. Larger human populations mean smaller habitats for wild animals and more demand for us as food and leather. Venezuela is squandering its natural heritage and that makes me so sad I can hardly eep.

Thank you to Yole from Venezuela for sending me this link, proof that many Venezuelans really do care about capybaras.

Capybara family at Hato El Frio, Venezuela

(Owner’s Blog)

In Febrary of 2007, my kids (Coral & Philip Waters) and I went to Venezuela. One of the places we went was a large ranch called Hato El Frio in the Los Llanos region. Los Llanos is often reffered to as the [...]]]>

Capybara family at Hato El Frio, Venezuela

(Owner’s Blog)

In Febrary of 2007, my kids (Coral & Philip Waters) and I went to Venezuela. One of the places we went was a large ranch called Hato El Frio in the Los Llanos region. Los Llanos is often reffered to as the New World equivalent of the African plains. Such a tremendous abundance of wildlife! And among those swamps and plains roam the world’s largest rodents, the capybaras.

Capybaras have disappeared in parts of their range where they are over-hunted or where there has been significant habitat destruction due to farming, daming and deforestation. Hato El Frio was one place where they still occurred in large number due to the ranche’s progressive attitudes.

Hato El Frio (and Hato El Cedral, although I did not visit there) were experiments in sustainable ranching along with ecotourism. Dams were built to encourage wildlife to remain year-round and to provide more habitat for aquatic or semi-aquatic species. In addition, cattle and water buffalo were raised for meat. Capybaras were also “harvested” but in a sustainable manner. For decades the ranch maintained a science station that studied the affects of ranching on wildlife populations.

The following photos show some of the interesting animals that we saw on our week-long stay.

Tamandua or Lesser Anteater at Hato El Frio, Venezuela

Giant Anteater at Hato El Frio, Venezuela

Rufous-tailed Jacamar at Hato El Frio, Venezuela

Three species of Ibis at Hato El Frio, Venezuela

Scarlet Macaws Flying at Hato El Frio, Venezuela

Howler Monkey at Hato El Frio, Venezuela

I could go on but you are probably wondering what the point is. So let me get to it. The Venezuelan government, under Hugo Chavez, has nationalized Hato El Frio and Hato El Cedral. See this article, Venezuela Coverts Tourist Destination into Farm Land.

I doubt that they are even now maintaining the Hatos’ programs to rebuild populations of the seriously endangered Orinoco crododile, red-footed tortoises, Orinoco side-neck turtles or river dolphins. I doubt that they are concerning themselves with sustainability. These ranches have served as a beacon to the region as to what can be done to use the land while retaining wildlife. Now all of that is gone.

This is a terrible tragedy made even worse by the fact that most Americans–who live so close–don’t even know what the world is losing. Most Americans don’t even know what a capybara is. Caplin and I are devastated. No species is safe if people and governments don’t care.

(Follow this link to see more of my photos of Hato El Frio including more capybara photos.)

Yes, it’s true. An albino capybara was born at a zoo in Uruguay on Christmas [...]]]> Big news! Tired of your same old sorrel-colored capybara? Even the white tipped hairs of the older individual seeming just a bit hum-drum? Well, your days of being jaded by our incredible cuteness are over! Now capybaras also come in snow white!

Yes, it’s true. An albino capybara was born at a zoo in Uruguay on Christmas Day, 2009. Her name is Snow White, or Blancanieves in Spanish, and she is gorgeous! Check out this article and photos and welcome to the world of colorful capybaras.

I was quoted in the LA Times this week in an article by Lindsay Barnett. Normally this would make me very excited and happy but the topic of the article brings much stress to [...]]]>

Two young capybaras cross the road (Image from LA Times)

Bolivia plans to export capybara meat to Venezuela;
famous capybara Caplin Rous is horrified.

I was quoted in the LA Times this week in an article by Lindsay Barnett. Normally this would make me very excited and happy but the topic of the article brings much stress to my little capy heart.

I am so worried about my wild cousins. It’s not like they don’t have enough to worry about with anacondas, jaguars, crocodiles, caiman, piranha, cars and humans hunting them for local consumption. Now my relatives in Bolivia are going to hunted and exported (dead) to Venezuela. I don’t think this is a good idea, and not just because we are adorable, smart, affectionate animals that would be much better appreciated alive.

Hunting capybaras will naturally make them much more reclusive. It will get harder and harder to spot them in the wild, even if their numbers don’t decline. As I said above, we are smart animals and we will figure out what’s going on in no time. This will hurt Bolivia’s ecotourism industy since ecotourists like it when they can see animals, especially large, cute animals like capybaras.

Also, capybaras are being ranched in Venezuela. It would be better to encourage that rather than importing animals from elsewhere. Ranching is (hopefully) done in a sustainable manner. The ranch owners have much more at stake in maintaining the local populations than hunters do. Sadly, hunting has greatly diminished our numbers, or even completely wiped us out, in large areas of our former range.

In some ways humans are smart but in others they are really slow learners. I hope they don’t learn too slowly for my wild cousins to survive.

Oh, and I wish people would stop saying that I should be in the wild! It’s starting to make me mad. The wild sure isn’t what it used to be.

Well, I hate to have to report this, especially after how excited I was for all you Calgarians when you got your capybara pair. I am always excited when some of my kind have the opportunity to teach more humans about us wonderful capybaras. But after just six months, [...]]]>

The lonely male capybara at Calgary zoo

Well, I hate to have to report this, especially after how excited I was for all you Calgarians when you got your capybara pair. I am always excited when some of my kind have the opportunity to teach more humans about us wonderful capybaras. But after just six months, things went horribly wrong for poor little Adali, right as she was reaching adulthood. She was crushed by a hydraulic gate! I can’t even say that without eeping. What a horrible fate for my poor cousin.

The zoo has said that the “accident” was a result of human error. But the person who killed Adali got only a two day suspension. How is that justice? The only good thing is he or she won’t be allowed to work with animals again.

Here are a couple of links to articles about this:

• Zoo spokesperson gives newsconference about incident
• Story with video of capybaras