Pls. Visit There NOW for Sandpipers and Plovers!: Tokyo Port Wild Bird Park, II 東京港野鳥公園

 

So, I tell you the beginning of the place. The bayside area of Tokyo, and to Yokohama’s Kan’nai 関内 area for that matter, was all shoal as a delta created by old Arakawa River 荒川. The reclamation of the swampy ground began long years ago, including the biggest and oldest civil engineering project in the middle of the 15th century by Ota Dokan 太田道灌. Come to think of it such endeavor is still going on. The bayside is expanding the land not only for Tokyo, but also Chiba and Kanagawa Prefectures … more than 600 years of human intervention … Yet, 60 years ago, the area around Haneda Airport was still a shoal. There were several fishing villages where fishermen engaged in nori cultivation. They caught fishes for Edomae sushi. Though especially after the end of World War II when Japanese economy entered the high growth period, the villages were rapidly encircled by huge plants for heavy industries. Haneda Airport was expanding as THE international gate for Tokyo. These conditions produced serious sea pollution. Fishing as a livelihood became difficult. Former fishing villages were now a part of Ota Ward, one of Tokyo’s special districts. Fishermen changed their business.

The moat surrounding the Imperial Palace is
the remnants of old delta that became Tokyo.
This part was reclaimed by Tokugawa Shogunate
 during the 16^th century.

Meanwhile, Tokyo was becoming more and more megalopolis. Before the wholesale food markets, including Tsukiji Market, were located around Akihabara 秋葉原 due to the historical legacy from the 16th century. By the second half of the 20th century, everything became cramped for Tokyo’s young (oh, yeah, it was so before) stomach. In the 1950s the Metropolitan Government began searching for wide open space not far from the center of Tokyo. The only, and to some extent traditional, choice was the land reclaimed in Tokyo Bay. Then, there was a shoal next to the airport some 20 minutes train ride from Tokyo Station, where traditional fishing villages were disappearing. Bingo. The former nori-farming shoal was quickly filled up to make a huge enough space for metropolitan wholesale food market. The story becomes interesting from here.

In Wild Bird Park, we can watch birds and airplanes fly together.

I don’t know if it could happen with today’s 21st century technology. But during the 1960s, it took time to convert the sea shoal to dry land, to make it sturdy enough to build large warehouses and wholesale market, and to build operational structures including the industrial wide roads. No one was lazy to make a large food market for hungry Tokyo, but it was 1990 when the current system of Ota Wholesale Market was completed. The project took 30 years to finish. i.e., during this civil engineering process, large reclaimed areas were left as “reclaimed land” waiting for their turn to receive constructions. Then, something interesting happened. Whatever the human intention, Tokyo Bay is a part of the Pacific Ocean. Especially at the edge of filled-up area, the Mother Nature “reclaimed” the space as sea. Moreover, the artificial hill that was expected to retain its above-sea height started to subsidence, if not to collapse. The depression did not reach the original sea level, but deep enough to gather rainwater as a pond. Meanwhile, the drainage system for the cities surrounding Tokyo Bay was continuously updated and the sea pollution became an episode in history books.

Water surface for Tokyo Port Wild Bird Park, now.

In addition, even if the area remained dry and waited for buildings, it did not remain as the original construction site. Similar to new volcanic and coral islands, lots of plants started sprouting. Maybe, the soil used for reclamation contained lots of dormant seeds. Or some could come from the sea, and the other would be thanks to animal dispersal, mainly by birds and from the soil carried by boots of human construction workers. They were not only herbaceous, but also woody plants. The put-off area became more and more a landscape of original Arakawa delta that could be seen 500 years ago. When plants started to thrive, small animals such as insects, rats, birds, etc. came from somewhere nearby and stayed there as their new home, just like many new Tokyoites coming to Megalopolis. The old residents of nori-farming shoal, i.e. fishes, crabs, etc. also returned to the new shoal next to Ota Wholesale Market. The food for seabirds, and then hawkeyed raptors became more and more abundant in this artificial site. Humans were also sharp-eyed.

Admitting some trees were later planted
by professional landscapers,
many of these plants in Wild Bird Park
came out naturally, really.

In the 1970s, many local nature lovers started to come here to watch birds, dragonflies, crabs, flowers, fishes, etc. Some noticed the area was important for migratory birds at least for a resting place. The voices from people pushed the Metropolitan Government to demarcate the area as Bird Sanctuary, and hence to decouple from the development of the Ota Market. In 1978, the Met government completed the construction of the Sanctuary Park, and in 1983 the Park changed its name to the current Tokyo Port Wild Bird Park 東京港野鳥公園. At that time, flattened against the Ota Market the size of the Park was modest 3.2ha. By 1989 the Park was extended for 24.9ha and the Nature Center was opened where the rangers from the Wild Bird Society of Japan stationed. In 2000, the shoal of the Park was registered for the East Asian–Australian Flyway Partnership (EAAFP) as an important transit stop for migratory Sandpipers and Plovers traveling between Australia and Siberia. In 2018, the Metropolitan government re-reclaimed the filled-up shoal and made it 3 times wider than the area where the Tokyo Bay naturally regained after the landfill construction. So, now, the Wild Bird Park has the size of 36ha.

The exhibit in the Nature Center for
Little Tern, the species for Plovers

The story is a bit stupid, I felt. Now the Wild Bird Park envelops the entire north side of the Ota Market in the middle of industrial warehouses of Tokyo. People paid tons of money to have a new land 60 years ago, and in the 21st century paid another tax-money to return the artificially reclaimed space to the original shoal … Never mind. Mother Nature is stronger than human convenience for quick access to a large food market. Good tuition fee. Oh, by the way, Sandpipers and Plovers visit the Park every April and May, i.e., NOW! If you have a chance to go there within few weeks, please try. Next week, I tell you how comfortable the observation facilities in the Park are for bird watchers. 😉

The rangers showed us the observation-points
for Sandpipers and Plovers.

Tokyo Port Wild Bird Park 東京港野鳥公園管理事務所

3-1 Tokai, Ota Ward, Tokyo, 143-0001
〒143-0001　東京都大田区東海3-1

Phone: 03-3799-5031
FAX: 03-3799-5032

You can send an enquiry to them by clicking the bottom line of their homepage at https://www.tptc.co.jp/support/contact/park/yatyo