Peaceful Coexistence in Korea

Once desolate DMZ now teems with bird and beast

If nature abhors a vacuum, as is said, it does not always do so in a predictable way. Consider Korea's Demilitarized Zone, which stretches for 151 miles near the 38th parallel, between North and South Korea. For a quarter-century, two armed adversaries have sullenly, sometimes violently, confronted each other across its 2.5-mile width. The sights of innumerable guns sweep it constantly. Observation planes patrol along it daily. But human beings never stay there for long. And because it is so totally a no man's land, the DMZ is not abhorred by nature.

Quite the reverse. The zone, in fact, teems with furred and feathered creatures. In a generation it has become one of Asia's premier wildlife sanctuaries. When the Korean War ended in 1953, the DMZ, once an area of wooded mountains and fertile farm land, was a wasteland pock-marked with bomb craters and shell holes. But in 25 years those scars have begun to heal. Abandoned rice terraces have turned into marshes, which are a favorite feeding ground for waterfowl. Old tank traps overgrown with weeds serve as cover for rabbits. Untamed thickets provide a refuge for herds of Asian river deer, each a small (3 ft. high) fanged version of its North American cousin.

In the rugged Taebaek Mountains, in the DMZ's eastern half, lynx and Korean tigers now roam where few soldiers ever tread. Even movements around the truce village of Panmunjom can be hazardous, not because of stray gunshots, but because a parade of plump pheasants may suddenly appear in the path of a passing Jeep. Says an American officer: "Those birds are so fat they have a hard time getting off the ground. I could set my limit in a day with just a slingshot."

The zone is one of the few places in the world left untouched by pesticides and herbicides. To help make the wildlife preserve even more flourishing, the South Korean government allocates some of its $400,000-a-year conservation budget for grain, which is spread by South Korean soldiers along their side of the DMZ. As a result, birds especially have come to prosper in the DMZ. In winter, members of the Korean Council for Bird Preservation like nothing better than to stalk the southern edge of the zone in hopes of catching glimpses of two particularly treasured species. One of them is the Japanese ibis, a long-necked, crimson and white bird that has been so reduced in number that only about a dozen are known to be left in the non-Communist world. Most of these survivors live on Sado Island, off the west coast of Japan; but two have been spotted during the cold months in the DMZ. The other species is the Manchurian crane, a majestic white, black and red bird with a wingspan of 8 ft., which is the emblem of the South Korean airline and something of a national symbol. Once there were hundreds in Korea's winter skies. Today, as a result of the shrinkage of wetlands, only a few flocks remain. Three of them winter in the DMZ, then fly off to their breeding grounds in Siberia.

One of the few "birders" who ever get a chance to see these magnificent creatures close up is Zoologist Won Pyong Oh, director of the Institute of Ornithology at South Korea's Kyung Hee University. Five times each winter, Won, 52, makes a well-advertised venture into the DMZ under the watchful eyes of soldiers on both sides of the line in order to observe and photograph the monogamous cranes in their elaborate mating rituals, which include wing flapping, bows and leaps into the air. "The Americans get very nervous," explains Won, who makes his perch right on the Military Demarcation Line in the very middle of the DMZ. "They're afraid the North Koreans will try to capture me."

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