Experts Say China Wolf Can Curb Deer Damage
8/30/97
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Title: Experts Say China Wolf Can Curb Deer Damage
Source: Reuters
Status: Copyright by source, contact for reprint permissions
Date: 8/30/97
Byline: Eugene Moosa
TOKYO - 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 record of a 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 of what may be
wolf-dogs 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.
PREY AND PREDATOR
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 then 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) 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 in
the late 19th century. And, by the turn of the century, the wolf, once a
common and revered carnivore in vast parts of this mountainous country,
vanished.
OVERPOPULATION OF DEER
The lack of a natural predator coincided with a dwindling number of rifle
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 considered
a politically correct sport.
Without either natural or human predators, the number of deer in the wild
has exploded out of control.
The deer feed on prize spruce, cedar and cypress saplings in Japan's
forests, as well as on the bark of grown trees. They also feed on potatoes,
rice and grazing grass.
The government's Forestry Agency says that in 1995 deer were responsible
for turning prime forests covering 4,100 hectares (10,130 acres) barren --
compared to 3,100 hectares ((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 growing deer population.
There are no estimates of 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 50 deer per
square kilometre (0.4 square mile) -- far above the sustenance level of
about five per square km.
Because of an abundance of food in Japan's wilderness, it is not uncommon
for a one year-old doe to give birth to a fawn, which effectively 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," said an official of the
Environment Agency's Wildlife Protection Section.
Agency figures show about 70,000 deer are hunted annually, but that is way
below the rate at which herds are growing.
CHINESE GRAY WOLF
The only solution, says Professor Maruyama, is to restore balance to the
ecosystem by re-introducing packs of Chinese gray wolves, a cousin of the
extinct Japanese wolf.
Maruyama and his colleagues at the Japan Wolf Association, a non-government
organisation 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," Maruyama
said 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 favoured 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.