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Paper short abstract:

This paper explores how imperial Japan's zoologist-activists negotiated science, nation- and empire-building, and local interests to select state-protected Natural Monuments, when dealing with animals and their habitats that did not fit the political boundaries the central government sought to draw.

Paper long abstract:

The 1919 establishment of Japan's state-led Natural Monument protection law was part of a wider movement amongst imperialist powers. Rapid nineteenth century industrialization and urbanization raised concerns about the resulting destruction of the environment. Voices lamenting the loss of indigenous flora and fauna, geological features, and scenic beauties, led to private and public endeavors in Europe and the United States to shield them from further damage. The Japanese followed by the turn of the century, looking specifically to the German model. Activists saw these monuments as memorials to nature's creations and human relationship with them, comparable to the manufactured kinds commemorating past heroes, and places and events deemed historic. In designating monuments at the national level, the central government chose those that supported contemporaneous nation and empire building, often in negotiation with local and private interests. Science was an additional factor to determine conservation or native statuses when choosing plants, animals, or minerals to protect.

Identifying animals that could represent Japanese-ness was particularly difficult, since they had to be charismatic, inspirational, recognizable, and memorable, and because political borders were meaningless to non-human creatures. Migratory birds like crested ibis (Nipponia nippon) and red-crowned crane (Grus japonensis), although named after the archipelago, were migratory and hence only resided in Japan part-time. Contemporary science located world-renown creatures such as the giant salamander (Megalobatrachus japonicas) and Japanese raccoon-dogs (Nyctereutes viverrinus) both on the continent and the archipelago. Many of the creatures identified as endemic, such as Mikado pheasant (Calophasis mikado, Taiwan) and Ryūkyū robin (Erithacus komadori), were of colonial origins. This paper examines how zoologist-activists like Watase Shōzaburō, Tanaka Shigeho, and Kaburagi Tokio navigated hurdles to create Japanese animals, based on their discourse in official journals like Shiseki Meishō Tennen Kinenbutsu, government-commissioned investigation reports, and more general writings. It ends by discussing how similar attempts at conservation occur now in the genome age.