Walker, author of the highly readable The Lost Wolves of Japan, explains what happened to Japan’s wolves and why they were exterminated (when they were once worshipped) in a campaign of eradication: “Even though Japanese worshiped wolves, they also killed them, particularly after the spread of rabies in the 18th century. The wolves have to come back to restore the balance.īrett L. Not even the mighty resident brown bears can do anything about the exploding sika population, which is causing tens of millions of dollars in damage to agriculture and the environment. Surely, this is the land of Pikachu and the monsters depicted in Japanese Anime, not a place where actual apex predators take down deer and the occasional human passerby? One could be forgiven for believing so, but an organization called the Japanese Wolf Alliance (JWA) aims to bring them back, most likely through importing closely-related Russian wolves, in part because the sika deer population in Hokkaido island alone has reached over a half a million and is devastating the natural balance of the ecosystem.
Indeed, for Japan, with its mega-cities, human-carved landscapes and even cemented riverbeds, it might seem ridiculous to think that wolves- two species, in fact-once roamed this fascinating but thoroughly modern and human-dominated landscape. It has been at least a century since the last Japanese wolf called out into the night.
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