A Village Living with Toki

Crested ibises once thrived in Japan. But by the early 1980s, the striking birds with long curved bills and pink-hued feathers were critically endangered due to overhunting for the feather trade, post-war logging, and pesticide use. 

Today, the ibis population on Sado Island exceeds 500, and the Japanese government is planning to release the birds outside the island for the first time. The story of their return is marked by cooperation and determination.

The last five wild crested ibises in Japan were captured on Sado Island in 1981 for captive breeding, but initial attempts failed because of inbreeding depression — the birds were too closely related, so their offspring were weak and didn’t survive. However, the species was rediscovered in China, where they were successfully bred. In 1999, China lent Japan a pair that successfully hatched a brood. 

China then sent five more birds to use in the breeding program. To avoid inbreeding, scientists matched less-related birds, rotated mates, and transferred some young to foster parents so that more successful parents would not dominate the gene pool. (If all the offspring of some parents died, the gene pool would become smaller.)

After years of breeding in captivity and releasing offspring to the wild, in 2016, the offspring of a released pair left their nest, marking the return of wild-born crested ibises to Sado Island. By 2020, the number of free birds reached 220. The following year, their status was upgraded from “Extinct in the Wild” to “Critically Endangered.” 

Local rice farmers have played a part in the ibis’s reintroduction to the wild. Through a program created and facilitated by the local government, the farmers create habitats with year-round food sources for the birds.

Certified farmers must conduct bio-surveys, reduce pesticides and chemical fertilizers by half, and use no herbicides on the land between paddy fields. They also must do at least one of the following: create water-filled perimeter ditches around rice paddies, connect paddy fields with fishways, keep water on rice fields in winter, use fallow fields as biotopes by filling them with water, or eliminate agricultural chemicals. 

These farmers also sell rice branded “A Village Living with Toki” at a premium, and they donate a portion of the profits to a habitat-improvement fund. 

Soon, ibises will be released on the Noto Peninsula, where the last toki on Japan’s main island of Honshu was captured. As Noto is also in the process of rebuilding after a New Year’s Day 2024 earthquake, the ibises have been taken up by residents as a symbol of renewal.