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Following the main mountain range down from North Korea across the demarcation line
is the Hyangrobong Peak.
Hyangrobong was named so because its peaks in the fog resembled a hyangro,
or Korean incense burner.
It is a veritable garden of heaven filled
by several dozen types of highland wildflowers.
This is the scenery in the western end of the DMZ.
Seokdo Island
Islets in the west sea have been taken over by birds.
Bido Island
Bido is one of them, and home to the rare spoonbill.
Spoonbill (Natural Monument No. 205)
Spoonbills are also called dark face dancers,
from the pitch-black face and bill.
Korea happens to be a world-famous spoonbill habitat,
and Bido Island provides them with what they need every spring.
Spoonbills rush out to the tidal flats when the water comes in.
The rising waters bring many life forms with it,
especially in the form of fish that swim with its currents.
However, Spoonbills are not good at hunting at all,
for they simply stir up the mud with their bills
until a fish gets caught in it by chance.
For the most part, birds have beaks adjusted for survival.
But it may be the bill that forced the Spoonbill to work much for little gain,
and placed them at the edge of extinction.
At the DMZ, one can almost reach out and feel North Korea.
A North Korean village with deserted streets
does not seem all that different from a South Korean hamlet.
The guns may have fallen silent, yet conflict and division continue.
It was because of an agreement made here in the Panmunjeom truce village
that the DMZ had come to be.
In Panmunjeom, the hushed silence of the Cold War persists.
We can only look forward to the day
when Panmunjeom will be at the frontlines of reconciliation.
By late October, our 300-days of documentary work was nearing its end.
We visited an event hosted by the Korea Otter Society
in Hwacheon, Gangwondo Province.
The only organization in Korea devoted to the study and protection of Otters,
a natural monument, its members gathered today
to release an injured Otter they nursed back to health into Bukhangang River,
hoping that it would act as an emissary of unification shuttling
between the two Koreas with total freedom.
Otter (Natural Monument No. 330)
The Otter playfully flirts with its tail ceaselessly.
The Otter is the top of the freshwater food chain.
The Otter was designated a first-class endangered species
by the Korean Ministry of Environment, and is also protected internationally.
There are barely three or four living in streams
near the Peace Dam near the DMZ.
Should the Otter be able to settle in Bukhangang River
and go freely between the two Koreas across the manmade barrier,
the Otter will become a symbol of peace in the DMZ
and the nature's ambassador for unification.
Looking puzzled at first, it dives swiftly into the river of life.
People look on and hope that will be able to live a healthy life.