NATURAL RESOURCES SECTION 
REPORT NUMBER 102 
30 January 1948 
JAPANESE ORNITHOLOGY AND MAMMALOGY DURING WORLD WAR II 
(An Annotated Bibliography ) 
INTRODUCTION 
Despite restrictions on all activities not contributing directly to the war effort, 
Japanese naturalists made signal contributions during the war years to their most unwar- 
like of sciences, Between late 1941, when censorship clamped down and communications with 
the rest of the world ceased, and 1944, when the war finally reached Tokyo, much work on 
the birds and mammals was accomplished. However, even two years after the Japanese sur- 
render, few of the wartime publications have reached the outside world, and perhaps many 
of them never will in their original form, The fire raids of 1944 and 1945 not only de- 
stroyed some of the most valuable collections and libraries in Japan but also eliminated 
the reserve stocks of recent periodicals and private publications. 
Naturalists in wartime Japan were hampered by many difficulties, From the China 
Incident in 1931 onward, as the military faction gained power, government funds for re- 
search in natural history were progressively curtailed, The official attitude became one 
of extreme exploitation of all natural resources for the war effort, without regard for 
the future, Accordingly, the Bird and Mammal Section of the Ministry of Agriculture and 
Forestry, perhaps the most outstanding of the Jananese conservation agencies, was one of 
the first to be restricted, As the war effort intensified, appropriations for tnis de- 
partment were cut consecutively, and.as its young staff members went off to war, their 
positions were eliminated, 
At the same time, with the full approval and backing of the military, a.new insti- 
tution was founded in Tokyo in 1941, the Research Institute for Natural Resources 
(Shigenkagaku Kenkyujo) under the direction of Dr K. Shibata, the botanist, Its higher 
vertebrate staff, nominally at least, consisted of Okada, Taka-Tsukasa, Kuroda, Hachisuka, 
Kiyosu, and Yamashina,. ©One of the institute's functions was to act as a repository and 
clearinghouse for all the scientific material sent to Japan from the invaded territories, 
and many specimens filtered through its hands as the Japanese advanced through the South 
Pacific, In 1943 it sent an expedition to northern China which, with help from the army 
of occupation, obtained from the Asiatic mainland an excellent collection of representative 
species long needed for comparative work in Japan, In 1943 and early. 1944 it published 
a series of technical treatises, covering such varied topics as the geography of the 
Greater East-Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, the food value of seaweeds, and the calcium con- 
tent of marine shells. Its publications on vertebrates include Tokuda's studies on Man- 
churian mice and on biogeographical distribution in Inner Mongolia, and Kiyosu's compilation 
on birds as food resources, The institute's wartime work came to a sudden end 25 May 1945 
when its building was destroyed by fire, The organization has been revived.and is now 
contributing to the reconstruction of Japanese natural science, 
During the early part of World War II, the Japanese people at home showed increasing 
curiosity about the res naturae of the newly conquered lands to the south, Several authors 
who had previous field experience there, notably Hachisuka, Take-Tsukasa, and Yamasnina, 
wrote popular, fast-selling works on the subject for lay consumption, Publication wae 
This report was compiled by Dr 0, L. Austin, Jr, scientific consultant, Wildlife Branch, 
Fisheries Division, assisted by Dr Masauji Hachisulm on the avian section, Dr Haruo 
Tekashima on the mammalian section, and Mr Nagahisa Kuroda on the periodicals. 
