No Fox Shrines on Sado?

 

Sado, or Sadogashima (佐渡島 "Assisted Crossing Island") is the sixth-largest island of the Japanese archipelago, and an unusual place. For one, despite two extended day trips of searching, I shouldn't be able to find a single fox shrine on the whole island. That doesn't mean there are none, though (since searching the whole island extensively would probably take at least a week even if I had a bike), but at the very least, it means there is a significant shortage of fox shrines on the island.

The reasons for this are twofold: One historical, and one geographical.

The geographical reason is simple: Since Sadogashima is surrounded by deep waters, it was not connected to the mainland in the last ice age, and thus foxes are not endemic there. In fact, prior to humans introducing mammals to the island, Sado was a veritable birds' paradise, comparable to New Zealand.

The historical reason is more complex and dates back to the 7th century, ever since when Sado was a popular place to exile political dissidents to. Since this included a large number of Buddhist monks who subsequently built temples on the island, there's an over-abundance of Buddhist temples on the island, and not all that many Shinto shrines. As opposed to the mainland, where Shinto shrines outnumber Buddhist temples by a factor of 3, here it's exactly the other way around.

Combine those two factors and it's not surprising that there are no (or very few) fox shrines on Sado. However, if there is one fox shrine on Sado after all, it might lurk at the coordinates 37.9034571,138.3425674 , in the mountains of Shimokuroyama (下黒山 "Lower Black Mountain").