Coastal Area 13304 Adjacent waters of Yoshino and Naka River mouths

Basic Information References

Reason(s) for selection Criteria

Characteristics References

These waters include the Naruto Strait (on the Shikoku side), and the mouths of the Yoshino and Naka rivers. The sea extending in front of the coast in the Naruto Strait is high in biodiversity, with a mixture of sargassum, Ecklonia cava and Ecklonia kurome beds, and others. It also is a wakame-producing region. Uchinoumi (partly included in the important waters) is home to the only large collection of eel grass beds on the Shikoku side of the Seto Inland Sea. Here and there in the expansive brackish waters at the mouths of the Yoshino and Katsuura rivers are abundant saltwater marshlands, with very high populations of fiddler crabs. They also provide habitat for Neripteron cornucopia, Clistocoeloma sinensis, and pea crab. The river-mouth tidal mud flats of the Yoshina River also are visited by snipe and plover, with relatively high populations during the migration seasons of spring and fall. Here at least 1% of the minimum estimated population of Kentish plover has been recorded, as has at least 0.25% of the minimum estimated population of black-bellied plover, lesser sand plover, and dunlin. Spotted greenshank, little curlew, Far Eastern curlew, and common redshank have been recorded here (Ministry of the Environment, 2001). In addition, the Yoshino River is habitat to the rare insects Cicindela lewisi and Cicindela inspecularis, as well as Cylindera elisae, big-headed ground beetle, various other beetles, and other river-mouth and seashore insects. In particular, there is no other habitat like it in Japan where large numbers of Cicindela lewisi, a rare species that has lost habitat across Japan, still live (Sunose et al., 1999).