Population Trend, Habitat Change and Conservation of the Unique Wildlife Species on Amami Island, Japan

抄録

　Amami Island has many terrestrial wildlife species and subspecies that are endemic to the Nansei Archipelago. Many of them live in the forest ecosystems, while young secondary forests have replaced the majority of the original forests due to the past clear-cutting forestry. Of those species, the great scaly thrush Zoothera dauma major, Owston white-backed woodpecker Drendrocopos leucotos owstoni, long-haired rat Diplothrix legata and Amami pygmy woodpecker Dendrocopos kizuki amamii, appear to be so dependent on the mature forests (uncut for at least 50 years after selective felling) that their numbers must have decreased at least for the last few decades. On the other hand, the populations of Amami rabbit Pentalagus furnessi, purple jay Garrulus lidthi, Amami woodcock Scolopax mira, Ryukyu robin Erithacus komadori and spinous rat Tokudaia osimensis have decreased in the central part of the island, where mongoose numbers have skyrocketed in recent years. In the mean time, forestry practices that turned out to be economically unprofitable have resulted in a precipitous decline in production in the early 1990s. Mongoose control has also encountered critical financial problems due to the ignorance of the local community. These situations are rooted in a local economy that has been deeply dependent on government subsidies, which facilitated various development activities.