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Archive for October 23rd, 2010

“Japan went from a country that viewed wolves as benign creatures to one that viewed them as animals that needed to be erased from the landscape.”

Posted in Facts and Figures, Wolf Current Events on October 23, 2010| Leave a Comment »


Not much is said about wolves in Japan but now it’s time!

The Japanese once saw wolves as benign creatures that guarded their crops. Farmers went to shrines to buy wolf talismans they could place around their grain fields for protection. In some places, the kindly Canis lupus was even honored with stone sculptures.

“It was almost the exact opposite of our 18th and 19th centuries in the American West,” says Brett Walker, assistant professor of history at Montana State University-Bozeman.

But then came 1868, a critical year in Japanese history.

The feudal government of the Tokugawa shoguns fell that year, and Japan turned to the West for help. As part of its effort to create a more modern and western-style country, Japan invited Edwin Dun, a rancher from Ohio, to oversee the establishment of a ranching industry on the northernmost island of Hokkaido.

“They believed ranching represented the agricultural future of Hokkaido,” Walker explained.

Dun introduced American ranching techniques to the Niikappu Ranch, but he also introduced American anxieties toward wolves, Walker continued. Dun advised the Hokkaido Development Board to poison wolves and wild dogs with strychnine. Hunting and bounty systems followed. Ultimately, persecution and other ecological factors caused the Hokkaido wolf to become extinct around 1890. The last Japanese wolf was killed in 1905. Both were distinct subspecies of Canis lupus and different from any wolf found in the United States.

“I’m interested in that historical shift. That is, how Japan went from a country that viewed wolves as benign creatures to one that viewed them as animals that needed to be erased from the landscape,” Walker said.

ALTHOUGH SOME REPORT SIGHTINGS, WOLVES IN JAPAN ARE BELIEVED TO BE EXTINCT.  Another failure about lack of efforts to co-exist with an animal long feared and terrorized.  “Wolf Preservation,” along with many other wolf agencies listed on my site, strive to attain the goal of wolves having a place in this world and to paint a complete picture of them.  Thank you to “Wolf Song of Alaska” for providing this information in this article!

http://www.wolfsongalaska.org/Wolves_Japan_parallels.htm

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A few basic differences between wolves, coyotes, foxes, and dogs

Posted in Facts and Figures on October 23, 2010| 2 Comments »


Seeing a wolf in the wild is rare.  From a distance, foxes, coyotes,  and even wild dogs running loose can be mistaken for wolves, which is a common error.  So, what are some differences between them?  Here are a few:

Foxes are much smaller than wolves.  Adult red foxes are not much larger than a house cat, weighing between 10-14 pounds.  Foxes do not hunt in packs while wolves do.  Foxes don’t hunt prey that are much larger than themselves.

Adult Coyotes weigh between 28-35 pounds.  They are larger than foxes but smaller than wolves.  Coyotes are often the same color as wolves but not quite the same shape.  Their legs are shorter, pointier muzzles, and have bigger ears.  Coyotes do not usually hunt in packs.  While Coyotes do howl, it sounds much different than wolves.   Coyote howls are more high pitched and contain barking sounds.

Dogs that can be mistaken for wolves are Siberian Huskies, German Shepherd, and Malamutes.  Generally, wolves have much wider heads, narrower chests, smaller more rounded ears, and do not have curly tails.

So the next time you see a dog-like animal in the distance, keep these facts in mind!

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