Author and animal researcher Masanori Hata, known by the nickname "Mutsugoro," has died of a cardiac infarction. He was 87.
Hata was born in Fukuoka, and joined the film department of Gakken Co. in 1960. After working in documentary film production, he left the company in 1968. He began writing, and in the same year won the Japan Essayist Club award for "Warera Dobutsu Mina Kyodai" (We animals are all brothers).
In 1971, Hata moved with his family, a bear and a horse to an uninhabited island in Hamanaka, Hokkaido. He established a facility called Animal Kingdom the following year on a hillside on the mainland of the prefecture.
