 IKIP Photo. The Kraternaya Bight, Ushishir Island, Kuril Archipelago. |
To some, the Kuril Islands are a desolate, uninhabitable archipelago, whose contested southernmost islands stubbornly prevent the full normalization of relations between Russian and Japan.
To others, the islands are an unrivaled biological laboratory, teeming with unique flora and fauna begging to be discovered, identified, classified, and marveled at.
The consensus among the Russian and American scientists of the fifth International Kuril Islands Project is resoundingly the latter.
"The islands' lack of development is an incredible gift," says botanist Sarah Gage of the Seattle-based University of Washington, who was on her second expedition. "It's an accident of political history … a young, evolving environment, and a natural laboratory for scientists."
Wearied after 36 days of exploring, cataloging, and rowing about the islands of Urup, Iturup, Kunashir, and Shikotan, the scientists returned to Vladivostok Aug. 26 aboard the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences research vessel, the Akademik Oparin.
"Given the technical problems with rowing 30-odd people to shore every day, and the drastic changes in weather common on the islands, we exceeded even our own expectations," said Viktor Bogatov, chief scientist for the Russian team on the expedition and a five-year veteran of the project.
Since its inception, the project's taxonomic efforts have yielded about 60 new animal and plant species, including new species of smelt, mollusks, spiders, and other insects. Past findings have excited scientists, taxonomists, and museum specialists around the world, says project coordinator and terrestrial insect specialist Brian Urbain.
This year, 60,000 specimens were collected by the American team for shipment back to the U.S., while the Russian team's collection, according to Bogatov, numbers "several tens of thousands."
Established in 1994, the expedition grew out of the efforts of University of Washington fish curator Ted Pietsch. Trilateral discussions with scientists at Japan's Hokkaido University and the Russian Academy of Sciences branch in Vladivostok led to a pilot expedition to the islands in 1994. Costs were initially covered by a $200,000 grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation and contributions from the Japanese government. Based on the first year's successes, including some 30,000 specimens shipped to the United States, the NSF agreed to fund the project with a five-year, $1.2 million "Biotic Survey Inventory Grant."
Despite the purely scientific nature of the project, politics and history did play a role in the composition of the multinational team. Japanese scientists, required to obtain visas to travel to territories Japan claims as its own, declined to take part this year, as in the first year when the expedition visited the disputed islands. Bogatov said that their presence and funding were missed in this year's preparations.
Five years of experience and familiarity with one another's methodologies and scientific practices mitigated most misunderstandings between the groups, though "there were pronounced differences in scientific methodologies," said Urbain.
The impression of most of the 11-member American team was that their Russian counterparts regarded them as "somewhat naive, even soft," said Sarah Gage. "We are, in some ways, dealing with adverse, undesirable conditions -- food, expectations. We're less resilient, have a lower tolerance for discomfort than [the Russians] do."
In 1999, the project's final year, organizers plan on traveling to those islands which, for logistical or weather-related reasons, the group was unable to explore over the past five years.
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