Jiro Kikkawa


Professor Jiro Kikkawa was a Japanese Australian ornithologist. His early zoological studies were at Tokyo University, Japan and at Oxford University in England. He subsequently spent three years at the University of Otago in New Zealand where he began what was to become an enduring focus of research, the behavioural ecology of Silvereyes and other species of Zosterops.

Early life

Jiro Kakkawa was born in Japan on 15 December 1929. He studied his BSc at Tokyo University of Fisheries graduating with a degree in marine biology in 1950. He was a Technical Officer in the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in Japan from 1950–53. He undertook postgraduate study at the University of Oxford from 1955-1956 and was a Teaching Fellow at the University of Otago from 1958–1961. He took his DSc in 1961 from Kyoto University.

Career

In 1961 Kikkawa moved to Australia, first to the University of New England at Armidale, and then to the University of Queensland in 1965. He was Head of the Department of Zoology from 1980–1988. As well as his studies on white-eyes he is well known for his studies on the biogeography of Australian rainforest birds.
After joining the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union in 1961, Kikkawa served on the RAOU Taxonomic Committee as well as on the editorial board of the RAOU journal Emu. In 1999 he was awarded the D.L. Serventy Medal for outstanding published work on birds in the Australasian region. As well as numerous published scientific papers, he authored and edited several books.
Kikkawa died on 30 May 2016 in Brisbane, Australia.

Memberships and Awards

The Jiro Kikkawa memorial lecture honours Kikkawa since 2017. In the past grants were given to a researcher whose work best supports and advances bird conservation.