SADO, Japan: Every day for the past 14 years, 72-year-old Masaoki Tsuchiya has set out before sunrise to search for a bird rescued from extinction in Japan.
Starting his car under star-dotted skies unpolluted by light, he works alone in the pre-dawn chill, marking sightings or absences in a planner, interrupted only by the crackle of a walkie-talkie.
The bird he is looking for is called “toki” in Japanese, and its presence on his home of Sado island is testament to a remarkable conservation programme.
In just under two decades, Japan’s population of wild toki has gone from zero to nearly 500, all on Sado, where the bird’s delicate pink…
