By TAKASHI SUGIMOTO/ Staff Writer
September 13, 2019 at 15:05 JST
A wedge-tailed shearwater chick has
been spotted for the first time on a Pacific island that was ravaged by a
volcanic eruption about six years ago.
An Environment Ministry team studying
wildlife and other features on Nishinoshima island about 1,000 kilometers south
of Tokyo said Sept. 12 that it found nests made by the birds, along with eggs
and a chick.
The island is about 130 kilometers west
of Chichijima island in the Ogasawara chain.
Ministry officials, biologists,
geologists and other scientists visited the island from Sept. 3 to 5.
What’s unusual about the findings is
that plants are typically the first to appear in new ecosystems on land.
“It shows how wildlife takes root on an
isolated island,” said Kazuto Kawakami, a senior researcher at the Forestry and
Forest Products Research Institute who took part in the survey, noting that the
study is of global significance.
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