Takuto Kurosawa, a fourth-year student at the School of Cooperative Veterinary Medicine, has been selected for the Tobitate! (Leap for Tomorrow) Young Ambassador Program.
This program is a grant-type scholarship system for study abroad that was established in FY 2014 though collaboration between the national government and companies to promote study abroad by Japanese students and develop global human resources.
Unlike conventional scholarship systems, the program covers not only academic study but also activities in which credits are not given, such as internships, volunteer activities and fieldwork, allowing students to voluntarily plan their study abroad. It also allows students to receive guidance from the leaders of all sectors and companies to develop the qualities and capabilities that are required for future Japan.
For the seventh term of the program, 1,939 students from 260 universities and other institutes across the country applied, and 608 students were finally selected through the first screening of documents and the second screening of interviews.
Kurosawa is the fifth OUAVM student to have been selected for the program. To learn medicine and management for wild animals, especially primates, which are rarely taught in Japanese veterinary medicine, he will do his around-the-clock internship at Wildtracks, an NPO in Belize in Central America for approximately six months from October 2017 to March 2018 to treat and rehabilitate endangered primates that are injured in poaching, such as Yucatan black howler (Alouatta pigra) and Atelidae in Central America, and return them to nature. He will also conduct field work on whether primates who have returned to forests adapt to the forests, and learn treatments and rehabilitation techniques for wild animals, especially primates.
On Friday, September 1, he and Marina Naoi, who was selected as a sixth-term member, reported their selection and activity plans overseas to President Kiyoshi Okuda.
Kurosawa began to study wild animals seriously when he participated in a study tour in Borneo during the spring break in his second year in university. There, he experienced nature that he had never seen before, but the environment was rapidly deteriorating due to palm oil plantation. He was shocked to learn that he himself did his share to damage the environment by consuming palm oil in Japan. While studying about primates, he learned that 60% of approximately 500 species are in danger of extinction and 75% face a decline in population.
On the other hand, an increase in the population of Japanese monkeys causes friction with people in Japan. In light of these circumstances, he felt the need for veterinarians who can work for the treatment, ecology, reproduction, management and conservation of primates, and planned this study abroad to see actual conservation work, which he is most interested in. “I would like to save as many wild animals that are dying out by people’s hands as possible,” he said.
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- Mr. Kurosawa (seventh-term member), Ms. Naoi (sixth-term member) and President Okuda (from the left)
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- Mr. Kurosawa was selected as a seventh-term member.
