Teuri Island (天売島 Teuri-tō) is an island in the
Sea of Japan
The Sea of Japan is the marginal sea between the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin, the Korean Peninsula, and the mainland of the Russian Far East. The Japanese archipelago separates the sea from the Pacific Ocean. Like the Mediterranean Sea, it h ...
30 km west of Haboro port in
Haboro,
Tomamae District, in the
Rumoi Subprefecture
is a subprefecture of Hokkaido Prefecture, Japan. As of 2011, it had a population of 52,627 and an area of . The population density of the subprefecture, 13 people per km2, is very low compared to the rest of Japan. The population of Rumoi Subpr ...
in
Hokkaido
is Japan's second largest island and comprises the largest and northernmost prefecture, making up its own region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; the two islands are connected by the undersea railway Seikan Tunnel.
The la ...
. The Island, along with neighboring
Yagishiri island
is a small, sparsely populated island in the Sea of Japan, northwest of Haboro Bay in Haboro, Hokkaido. The island, along with neighboring Teuri Island on its west side, belongs to the town of Haboro in Rumoi Subprefecture. It is noted for its ...
on its east side, belongs to the town of Haboro in Rumoi Subprefecture. The island has an area of 5.5 square kilometers (2.1 sq mi), with 12 km of coastline, and the population is 317 people as of March, Heisei 20 (2008). It is said that the name of the island comes from the
Ainu language, where the name could either be interpreted as “fish back” or “leg.”
Overview
The island's cliff-lined northwest coast serves as a breeding ground for
common guillemot
The common murre or common guillemot (''Uria aalge'') is a large auk. It has a circumpolar distribution, occurring in low-Arctic and boreal waters in the North Atlantic and North Pacific. It spends most of its time at sea, only coming to land to ...
,
Rhinoceros Auklet,
Spectacled Guillemot
The spectacled guillemot or sooty guillemot (''Cepphus carbo'') is a seabird in the auk family.
Description
This species is about with red legs, black bill, and a blackish iris.
The breeding adult spectacled guillemot is distinctive, mostly p ...
,
Japanese cormorant
The Japanese cormorant (''Phalacrocorax capillatus''), also known as Temminck's cormorant, is a cormorant native to the east Palearctic. It lives from Taiwan, north through Korea and Japan, to the Russian Far East.
The Japanese cormorant has a b ...
, and
slaty-backed gull. For this reason, on August 8, 1939, Teuri island was appointed as a natural
monument
A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, his ...
and now is known as "Teuri Island seabird breeding ground". The island has been recognised as an
Important Bird Area
An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations.
IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...
(IBA) by
BirdLife International
BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding ...
for its
seabird
Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same enviro ...
colonies
In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the '' metropolitan state'' ...
.
On March 31, 1982, Teuri island was designated part of the Wildlife Protection Areas in Japan. In Haboro town, in order to protect the wildlife such as seabirds, measures were taken since April 2012 to control the increase of the local population of stray cats.
Currently, the Teuri island is an island covered with green, but since the
Meiji era
The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912.
The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization b ...
, most of the forest in the island was lost due to settlers and the often occurrence of forest fires. After
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, Hokkaido began a land restoration project in order to reforest the island after the previous damage. Owing to the harsh natural environment on the island, the land restoration project underwent some difficulty, but the results were finally seen by August 1, 1990. The island is now designated as part of the
as one of the must-see sightseeing places in Japan.
Transport
Teuri port
* Haboro Enkai Ferry
* Haboro-Yagishiri-Teuri(High-speed craft take about one hour and with ferry one hour and thirty-five minutes)
* Yagishiri-Teuri(High-speed craft take about fifteen minutes and with ferry twenty-five minutes)
Hokkaido Prefectural Road Route 548 is the general road for the Teuri island that made into an anti 6 shape.
Landmark
* Kannonzaki Observatory
* Akaiwa Observatory
* Seabird Observatory
* Chidorigaura
References
Geographical Survey Institute
Islands of the Sea of Japan
Islands of Hokkaido
Important Bird Areas of Japan
Seabird colonies
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