Okinawa rail photographed eating its lunch

Okinawa rail photographed eating its lunch

On April 5 at Sosu in Kunigami, an Okinawa rail pecks at a worm on the road.


April 6, 2012 Ryukyu Shimpo

In the afternoon of April 5, photographs were taken of an Okinawa rail, a national natural treasure, looking for food on an old road in the Yambaru forest in the northern part of Okinawa. Wild birds in the Yambaru forest are now entering their mating season. The photographs were taken on a side road just 50 meters off the old road facing Prefectural Highway 70 at Sosu in Kunigami, which is an area designated for accident prevention. The bird was pecking away at a worm in dirt piled up on the road.

By April 4 this year, there had already been ten traffic accidents, three times more than by the same date last year, which posted a record high of 37. Makoto Fukuda, a staff member of the Yambaru Wildlife Conservation Center of Ministry of the Environment said, “Okinawa rails look for food in the dirt, so it is important to clean up the ditches to prevent the rails from being involved in accidents.”

(English translation by T&CT, Shinako Oyakawa and Mark Ealey)

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