Experts Say China Wolf can Curb Japan Deer Image
7/29/97
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Headline: Experts Say China Wolf can Curb Japan Deer Image
Source: Reuters
Date: 7/29/97
Byline: Eugene Moosa
Copyright 1997 by Reuters
TOKYO (Reuter) - Japan's multiplying deer population is
destroying prime forests at an alarming rate and experts say the
way to end the problem is to bring back wolves, extinct in the
country for nearly a century.
The last recorded wolf in Japan was in 1905 when the body of
a species known as ``canis lupus hodophilax'' was found in hills
near the ancient capital Nara. No Japanese wolf has been seen
since, although enthusiasts think a few still exist, basing
their belief on random sightings in the wild.
``The probability that the Japanese wolf still exists is
below 0.01 percent,'' said Professor Naoki Maruyama of Tokyo
University of Agriculture and Technology, a renowned wolf expert
and ecosystem specialist.
The story of the Japanese wolf is directly related to that
of its traditional prey, the deer, Maruyama says.
When Japan abandoned 300 years of isolation and opened up to
the West in 1868, farmers suddenly found a market for venison to
feed meat-hungry Europeans and Americans. Japan did not produce
beef or pork in quantity because of its traditional diet of
rice, fish and vegetables.
With firearms available for the first time in centuries --
the Tokugawa Shogunate (1603-1868) had greatly feared peasant
revolts -- farmers took to the hills and slaughtered tens of
thousands of deer. The fate of the Japanese wolf was sealed by
the disappearance of deer and, by the turn of the century, the
wolf, once a common and revered carnivore in vast parts of this
mountainous country, had vanished.
OVERPOPULATION OF DEER
The lack of a natural predator coincided with a dwindling
number of hunters. In 1960, there were about 500,000 licensed
hunters in Japan; now there are only some 200,000, mainly
because hunting is no longer a politically correct sport.
Without either natural or human predators, the number of
deer in the wild has exploded. They feed on prize spruce, cedar
and cypress saplings as well as on the bark of grown trees. They
also feed on potatoes, rice and grazing grass.
The Forestry Agency says deer were responsible in 1995 for
turning prime forests covering 10,000 acres barren, compared to
7,660 acres in 1992. ``Given the long time it takes to build a
forest, damage from deer is a grave problem,'' an official of
the agency's Forestry Protection Office said.
The Environment Agency, in charge of protecting wild
animals, said hunters were now the only means of checking the
deer population. There are no reliable figures on Japan's deer
population, but in forests such as Odaigahara in Nara
Prefecture, where the last Japanese wolf was known to have
existed, there are more than 100 deer per square mile -- far
above the sustenance level.
Because of an abundance of food in the wilderness it is not
uncommon for a year-old doe to give birth to a fawn, which means
a herd can double in just a few years.
``We used to only allow the hunting of stag but since 1994
some prefectures have begun to allow hunters to kill doe,'' an
official of the Environment Agency's Wildlife Protection Section
said. Agency figures show about 70,000 deer are hunted annually,
way below the rate at which herds are growing.
CHINESE GRAY WOLF THE SOLUTION
The only solution, Maruyama says, is to restore balance to
the ecosystem by re-introducing packs of Chinese gray wolves, a
cousin of the extinct Japanese wolf. Maruyama and colleagues at
the Japan Wolf Association, a non-government organization set up
to plan a wolf comeback, say the successful re-introduction of
Canadian wolves in Yellowstone National Park in the United
States has shown the benefits of the wolf.
``Overcoming the myth of the bloodthirsty wolf is our first
goal,'' he told Reuters in an interview. ``And our long-term
goal is to import packs of wolves to Japan's forests.''
Four years ago, when the association conducted its first
public opinion survey, only 12 percent favored bringing wolves
back into the wild. In a similar survey this year, 29 percent
supported the idea.
``We will announce a concrete plan based on packs of Chinese
gray wolves once we attain a 50 percent support rate,'' Maruyama
said.