Wildlife Vet: Saito Keisuke – FRONTRUNNERS
[Music] This veterinary surgeon specializes in treating wild birds of prey. There are few others like him in the world. [Music] [Music] [Music] The Kushido wet. wetlands of eastern Hokkaido, the largest wetland ecosystem in Japan. This natural paradise is home to many rare animals and plants. As winter approaches, Stella’s sea eagles and other raptors arrive from Russia. [Music] The Kushiro Shitsugen Wildlife Center is operated by the Ministry of the Environment. Saitoke is a vet who works here. What’s your question? Seto is head of the Institute for Raptor Biio Medicine, Japan. Based inside the wildlife center and operating under the opaces of the Ministry of the Environment, the institute provides wildlife rescue and treatment, including stellar, sea eagles, and other endangered species. The team tackles around a 100 cases a year. Traffic accidents and other human activities account for most of the injuries. Very few vets anywhere specialize in wild raptors. Silto has spent 30 years saving their lives. After treatment, the birds build up their strength inside a cage. The center is currently home to around 70 birds. Each species is on the brink of extinction. [Music] But not all of the birds can be returned to the wild even after treatment. Some lose a wing in an accident. Others do not fully recover. Categorized as nonreable, these birds nevertheless receive lifelong care. Every morning, the team checks on the health of each bird. To prevent any infection, they disinfect their boots before entering the [Music] cage. A vet is told as soon as any issue arises, [Music] Today, Silto receives an outside report. A stellar sea eagle is at the side of a road, unable to move. It’s about an hour’s drive. The bird is motionless around 10 m from the road. It seems to have been hit by a car or train. First, Silito runs a test to see if the bird has influenza. Gotti, the bird is very weak and possibly close to death. The substances injected include nutrients and antibiotics. Emergency treatment completed. They take the bird back to the center. Working alongside Silaitto is another vet, Watanab Yukio. The eagle has gone a long time without food. It has malnutrition. They try to feed it hoping the nourishment will give the bird strength, but it cannot manage to eat. Tests have revealed a dangerously low red blood cell count. Urgent treatment is required. They decide on a blood transfusion from another Stella’s sea eagle. In an emergency, the center uses blood from one of the non-releasable birds. After testing for compatibility, Syto transfuses 35 ml of blood. Now all the team can do is wait. [Music] After treatment, the vets decide if a bird will be able to return to the wild. Those ones undergo rehabilitation. Between 2020 and 2024, 44 birds were released. [Music] Even when the birds are back in the wild, Silito and the others keep an eye on them. Eagle they released a month ago is behaving oddly. Released raptors are equipped with a GPS tracker so the team can follow their movements. [Music] They follow the GPS signal to the eagle about 50 km away. They’ve been searching for 15 minutes. The bird makes no attempt to fly off as they approach. They move closer carefully and throw some fish. It tears into the meal at once. It seems it hasn’t had enough to eat. they decide to monitor the situation with regular visits. But 4 months later, the white-tailed eagle is now in a cage at the center. As it had become increasingly weak, the team had to bring it [Applause] in. Strictly speaking, treating, rehabilitating, and releasing a wild animal doesn’t actually constitute returning it to the wild. If it begins to weaken, you help and support it. You might need to bring it back in for treatment, rehabilitate it again, and release it again. On one occasion, a white-tailed eagle was returned to the wild three times. Properly fed, the eagle has been getting stronger. The team begins to rehabilitate it in preparation for its release. They do what they can to make the eagle beat its wings. This is important for recovery and also makes the bird distrust people. Go. It’s now able to fly a little. But will it survive after returning to the wild? Today, Silto is checking on the eagle’s recovery. He gave us he checks on the bird’s ability to fly. It’s time for the eagle to return to the wild. It takes the whole group to catch it. It will be released in the mountains, a long way from any human settlement. It flies away safely. Silto grew up in France surrounded by wildlife in woodland near Paris. He began to think about a career that would let him work with wild animals. [Music] He entered junior high school when he returned to Japan and went on to study wildlife medicine at university. But he couldn’t find work in Japan as a wildlife vet. After graduating, he joined a city animal hospital. He wanted to improve his skills and pushed himself hard. On days off, I’d go to academic conferences and make presentations or I’d write papers. I felt I wouldn’t make it without all the skills I’d need as an independent vet. So, winning recognition quickly was an important goal. His big opportunity came at the age of 30, a chance to work at the Kushido Shitsugen Wildlife Center. His task would be to treat and manage threatened raptor species. [Music] The institute that he heads not only treats injured birds, it also strives to prevent accidents from happening. Silto calls this work environmental treatment. A bridge over a river is one focus of his attention. Bridges may pose a danger to a bird of prey that dives into the water for fish. This is the path the birds take. We humans use the bridge to cross the river. As a result, this is a place where the paths of birds and humans intersect. Lots of accidents result. Observing this, Silto developed special poles. Birds have to fly above them and as a result, fewer are hit by cars. After tests, he was able to space poles close enough that birds cannot pass between them and make them tall enough that birds avoid large vehicles. Silto got involved in environmental treatment after something that happened nearly 30 years ago. It was 1996, his third year at the center. Silito discovered the corpse of a very thin eagle. It had no external wounds, but when they opened it up, they found fragments of a lead bullet in its stomach. The cause of death was lead poisoning. Once absorbed by the body, lead is a deadly poison. It gradually dissolves in the stomach, causing severe problems. Hunters told me that it looked like bits of a lead rifle bullet, maybe fragments that had become embedded in the deer’s flesh. The eagle would have eaten the meat and the lad ended up in its stomach. [Music] I learned that most hunters take home only the edible parts of the deer and leave the rest of the carcass for wild animals. They weren’t aware of the risks. The center dealt with a series of cases involving eagles with lead poisoning. There was a plague of lead poisoning in the ecosystem that previously nobody had noticed. It was a huge challenge unless we dealt with it at the source. We wouldn’t be able to solve it. I was desperate to do something. Seto pushed for regulations on lead bullets, but the authorities paid little attention. All the afflicted birds being brought to the center sent us a clear message about what was going on. We would do our best to treat them, dissect the dead ones, and record the evidence. And I spoke about the problem wherever I went. But lead bullets were cheap, and hunters loved them. They pushed back and some even sent threatening letters to [Music] Silto. One hunter, however, supported Seaitto’s efforts. Shimizu Satoshi. After learning of the harm done by lead bullets, he quickly switched to copper ammunition. Once Saito learned of this, he reached out to Shimizu for help. I told him I already used copper bullets, 100% copper bullets. He asked me to work with him. That’s how I got involved with his activities. I also want to eradicate lead poisoning. The act of hunting was killing endangered species. That had to stop. The idea that killing deer comes first and nature just doesn’t matter. I felt sure most hunters did not think like that. The two men worked to change things. Hokkaido introduced new regulations on lead bullets, and now the central government’s aim is a nationwide ban on lead ammunition by [Music] 2030. Ever since those days, Silito has paid close attention to autopsies. He wants to know the cause of death. The center also accepts birds that have already died. The team conducts autopsies to work out what happened. There’s fish, flesh, and bones in the beak. I guess it caught prey in the river and then tried to perch on a pylon. It was electrocuted and fell, killed by electrocution. No life should be wasted. Gathering information from the dead birds like this helps us as we try to make sure that others don’t meet the same fate. It’s important work. While some birds are killed in collisions with traffic or trains, many others are electrocuted. [Music] Silito is working on preventative measures. [Music] Installing something like this in a place that poses a threat to eagles will discourage them from landing. Silto took the lead in developing this device. It’s designed to go on pylons and the unusual shape can be seen from any angle. Raptors have limited color vision, but these colors stand out. In the summer, the natural background will be green or brown. The pale yellow will stand out. [Music] Seto worked with power companies to carry out experiments. Once they knew that the new devices worked, 2,500 were set up across Hokkaido. They have made a huge difference in preventing electrocutions. [Music] Right now, Silito is tackling a new issue, wind farms. As interest in renewable energy soarses, wind generation is booming. But the blades of the turbines pose a great danger to birds. Silito visits the turbines to see if there have been any accidents. It is thought that birds are hit because they have difficulty seeing any threat in the massive fastm moving [Music] blades. In Hokkaido, at least 30 endangered eagles died this way between 2020 and 2024. But Silito says that is just the tip of the iceberg. He doesn’t want any death to be in vain. He records it as another step on the path to better prevention. Some people may think it’s ridiculous to visit every turbine and search like this, but this is part of our job. We find the birds that have died unnoticed and we translate that death into data, something humans can understand. If we want to harness the power of wind, then we must develop turbines that work not only for humans but for wildlife as well. That is a necessity and an urgent one. Silito has started working on the development of a new turbine design with the Ministry of the Environment and a [Music] startup. The Magnus wind turbine has blades on a vertical axis. Seaitto believes this will be easier for birds to see and should prevent bird deaths. First of all, they place one inside the cage for the non-releasable birds to gauge their reaction. This is the very first step. How will the birds respond to this small scale version? Would it be viable to replace a propeller style turbine with one of these? This is our initial experiment. I love new challenges. It has never occurred to me to give up because something is difficult. One step forward or half a step, even a quarter step, that’s better than waiting for a perfect solution. Any movement forward brings us closer to the best answer. [Music] Veterary students from the UK and elsewhere in Hokkaido are visiting the center to learn about its wildlife conservation activities. white fur just above the beak as well. The one at the back. In order for the various challenges to be as widely known as possible, the center is open to the public. Today’s visitors are also learning about environmental treatment. I have a question. Yes. So, is there a difference between like red at the top and yellow bottom and yellow top and red bottom? They come from higher place, upper place and also the every angle. So we just you know change much easier to see. Thank you. Which type is best? Actually this these type are almost final easy to how can humans and wild animals live in harmony? People all over the world are trying to answer this question. It’s honestly great to see how they try to rescue and utilize the animals as well. Like some of them, most of the places they only do it for educational purposes, but I was quite impressed by the fact that they utilize animals in like different ways, including research purposes. So, that was quite refreshing to see. I want to be a general animal doctor in the future, but specifically I’m interested in specializing in wildlife conservation. Um, so being here today was just extra um made me extra enthusiastic about doing that. Yeah. Another eagle is about to be returned to the wild. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Caitto case. What motivates him as a front runner in his field? I don’t know if my goal is near or far, though I suspect it’s pretty distant. There will be more problems between people and wild animals, new issues to solve. I intend to keep seeking a way forward by closely monitoring our wildlife. For me that’s everything.
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A wildlife veterinarian in Hokkaido works tirelessly to treat and rehabilitate endangered birds of prey injured by human activity.