General characteristics The Japanese islands included in this Secondary Area are those off southern Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu, and islands in the Korea Strait (Tsushima and the Goto Islands) as far round as the Oki Islands in the Sea of Japan (Brazil 1991); in Korea, also Ullung-do and some of the small islands off the south coast of the mainland (Gore and Won 1971). The area partly covers the breeding range of Japanese Wood-pigeon Columba janthina (Near Threatened), which also occurs in the Nansei, Izu and Ogasawara Islands (EBAs 146, 147, 148), and formerly on the Iwo Islands (Secondary Area s091). It has also been recorded on tiny islands off Shandong province in China (Cheng Tso-hsin 1987) and off Taiwan (Wang et al. 1991), but, as it is not clear if it breeds here, these islands have not been included within the Secondary Area. The key habitat for the species is dense, mature, subtropical or warm temperate evergreen forest, so any loss or degradation of forest on the tiny islands it favours is a significant threat. Some of the islands in this Secondary Area are also important for seabirds, including Japanese Murrelet Synthliboramphus wumizusume (classified as Vulnerable) which is threatened by destruction of nesting habitat, by disturbance from fishermen landing at breeding sites and by introduced predators (Hasegawa 1984, Takeishi 1987). |
