The Crested Ibis Is Back. But Is It Really “Japan’s Crested Ibis”?

The other day, I came across news reports that crested ibises had been spotted in several places across Fukui and Shiga prefectures.

Apparently, birds released on Sado Island had flown all the way to these distant areas. It is wonderful to see the efforts to return the species to the wild bearing fruit.

But the news reminded me of a discomfort I had felt for some time.

Japan’s native crested ibis lineage came to an end in 2003, when Kin, the last Japanese-born crested ibis, died. The crested ibises flying over Japan today are descended from birds provided by China.

The Chinese and Japanese crested ibises belong to the same species and are genetically very close. That is why this is described as the revival of Japan’s crested ibis.

I understand the science. But if they are genetically the same, can we really say that what was lost has returned?

If the Genes Are the Same, Is Everything Back to the Way It Was?

Let us take an extreme example.

Suppose every person in a country disappeared. Later, people from another country with a similar genetic background moved there.

What would we think if someone then announced, “They are genetically almost identical, so this country’s people have been restored”?

Surely, we would want to say: Wait a minute.

What happened to the history and culture built up over generations by the people who had lived there?

Humans and birds are not the same, but they do share one thing: some forms of value cannot be explained by genetic identity alone.

The crested ibises that once flew over Japan’s rural landscapes had lived in the country’s environment for generations. Their numbers dwindled because of overhunting and environmental change, until eventually they disappeared.

The fact that today’s crested ibises belong to the same species does not mean that this history has also been restored.

For a more familiar analogy, imagine a centuries-old shop going out of business, only for a foreign company to begin making the same product in the same place.

The taste and appearance might be identical. Even so, it would be hard to call that the complete revival of the old shop.

The Convenient Word “Revival”

Breeding crested ibises from China and returning them to the wild in Japan is a major achievement.

But the phrase “the crested ibis has been revived” is a little too convenient.

Biologically, the same species has returned. Yet the population that had continuously lived in Japan is gone.

This distinction is not mere wordplay.

If we decide that bringing the same species in from abroad makes everything as it was, then even the meaning of protecting local ecosystems begins to change.

Even if they came from abroad, crested ibises are beautiful flying through Japan’s skies. They can build a new history here from now on.

But there is no need to let the extinction of Japan’s former crested ibis population become buried beneath a beautiful comeback story.

If the lesson becomes “even after a species goes extinct, we can bring it back from abroad,” this success story will be terribly inconvenient for the next creature facing extinction.