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Saito, Keisuke (Keisuke Saito, Japan)

Saito, Keisuke (Keisuke Saito, Japan)

President and D.V.M., Institute for Raptor Biomedicine Japan (IRBJ)

Keisuke Saito is a wildlife veterinarian working on the conservation of the Japanese endangered species in Hokkaido; the northern most islands of Japan. He has been engaged in conservation veterinary medicine as the director of the Institute for Raptor Biomedicine Japan, established in the laboratory of the “Kushiro-Wetland Wildlife Center.” His main study is conservation breeding of and a rehabilitation program for Blakiston's Fish Owl (Ketupa blakistoni), but he also engages in the health control of endangered raptors such as Steller’s Sea Eagle, the White-tailed Eagle, the Golden Eagle and the Japanese Mountain Hawk Eagle.

From 1994, he started to work as a professional researcher and wildlife veterinarian in Kushiro Wetland Wildlife Center; a facility managed by the Ministry of the Environment of Japan. In 1996, he found for the first case, the lead poisoning of a Steller’s Sea Eagle, caused by the ingestion of a rifle bullet. He started a movement with his colleagues to ban the lead rifle bullet and shotgun slug, asking for their regulation by changing Japanese hunting laws. He finally succeeded in changing the national hunting law, to limit the use of lead bullets and slugs in deer hunting from 2001.

He is also one of the administration officers of the World Association of Wildlife Veterinarians (WAWV) and Japanese Association of Zoo and Wildlife Medicine.

 

・Executive positions at present

1. Member of the Committee for the Conservation of Endangered Fauna and Flora (Japanese Ministry of the Environment)

2. Member of the Expert Committees for Japanese Endangered Species (J.M.E.); Blakiston’s Fish Owl, Steller’s Sea Eagle and the White-tailed Eagle.

3. Executive Committee member of the World Association of Wildlife Veterinarians (WAWV)

4. Executive Committee member of the Japanese Association for Zoological and Wildlife Medicine.

 

・Book (English)

Raptor Biomedicine 3, Zoological Education Network, 2000, 163-169

Lead poisoning of Steller’s Sea Eagle (Haliaeetus pelagicus) and the White-tailed Eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla) caused by the ingestion of lead bullets and slugs in Hokkaido Japan, Ingestion of Lead from Spent Ammunition: Implication for Wildlife and Humans, The Peregrine Fund, Boise Idaho USA, 2009

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