Status of proposed wolf reintroduction into Japan

Naoki Maruyama, Japan Wolf Association, Yamaguchi 5347 52-1-403, Tokorozawa, Saitama Prefecture, 359-1145, Japan and Tokyo Noko University, Faculty of Agriculture, Saiwaicho 3-5-8, Fuchu, Tokyo, 183-8509, Japan

The movement to reintroduce wolves into Japan as a non-governmental activity began in 1993. Public support has gradually increased but is still low. Under these conditions, public education is the primary, indispensable measure. This consists of annually publishing a wolf information magazine "Forest Call" (3,000 copies), maintaining an Internet home page, holding wolf meetings, conducting feasible study and wolf ecotours (domestic and abroad), and cooperating with the media in informing about wolves. Since 1996, wolf ecotours have been conducted every June in the Hulunber grassland and forests of the Da Higgang (Xingang) Ling mountains, China, to survey for wolf status, locating a source of wolves to reintroduce to Japan, and contributing to wolf conservation in the local community. Although wolves are killed as a nuisance animal, they have survived in a small number along the national border with Mongolia and Russia. In the Da Xing'ang Ling forests, many wolves probably depend on roe deer and livestock populations under the recent campaign for wildlife protection, that includes wolves, by the national and local administrations of China. Our next tour is expected to visit Sakhalin and Prymorsky (Russia), close to Hokkaido, to determine the status of wolves there. Protection of wolves in both areas is fundamental to our movement in Japan. As for conditions in Japan, a further increase in wildlife populations, such as sika deer, wildboar, and Japanese monkeys, and of wildlife damages of forests, forestry, and crops will facilitate sympathy for wolf reintroduction. So too will the public's appreciation of, and promotion of, nature conservation. This year, some local agriculture and forestry cooperatives, and municipal corporations, asked to explore our idea, because of intolerable, non-controllable forestry and agricultural damages by wildlife. This situation will get worse in the near future. A recent similar movement in Korea will help our movement.