"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
sub-species 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.
Walker specializes in Japanese history during the 17th, 18th and
19th centuries and has always been interested in environmental
history. He plans to teach a course on Japanese environmental
history in the fall. But the discovery that Japan had wolves is
taking him outside the normal realm of Japanese historians and
getting him involved with biologists and ecologists. Besides
reading manuscripts in classical Japanese, he is now measuring
wolf skulls and inspecting elk carcasses.
From Nov. 15 to Dec. 15, he spent two days a week in Yellowstone
National Park with scientists participating in the Yellowstone
Wolf Project Winter Study. Last summer, he traveled to the
Hokkaido University Museum of Natural History, under a Japan
Foundation grant, where he collected enormous amounts of
information about wolf extinction.
"I'm reading more books on wolf biology than I am on Japanese
history any more. I'm kind of re-educating myself," Walker said.
His interest in wolves is one reason he and his wife moved to MSU
from Yale University, Walker added. Walker was teaching Japanese
history at Yale, but came to MSU last year to teach Japanese
history and become director of the new Japan Studies Program
(www.montana.edu/japan). His wife, Yuka Hara, teaches beginning
and intermediate Japanese at MSU.
"We wanted to be closer to Yellowstone and an area that was
experiencing wolves," Walker explained.
Walker is now writing a book on his findings. One chapter will
focus on the history of wolf taxonomy in Japan. Some scholars
debate whether these canids were wolves at all or merely wild
mountain dogs. Another chapter will explore the portrayal of
wolves in popular culture, including museums, comics and animated
films. His book will include historical illustrations and early
writings that trace the changing nature of Japanese attitudes
toward wolves.
"Brett Walker has done a remarkable piece of research, weaving
together history, science and culture," commented Ron Nowak, a
nationally-known taxonomist who reviewed a draft of Walker's
taxonomy chapter. "His presentation should make a topic, canid
taxonomy, ... interesting to a broad spectrum of the public.
"One of the most fascinating aspects of Walker's study is the
revelation of parallels between Japan and eastern North America,"
Nowak continued.
Walker said his research reveals many correlations between
Montana and Japan, too. The similarities should help Montanans
see that Japan is more than simply a distant exotic land with a
difficult language.
"Our mutual fear and admiration of these animals bring us
together as people," he insisted.
"If there's a message," Walker added, "I think it's that there is
a serious degree of regret that wolves are extinct in Japan. "I
think that there's a feeling that an important part of Japan's
natural heritage and culture has been eliminated.
"It would be a real shame," he said, "if the wolf program in
Yellowstone ever reached the point where it wasn't working and
somehow we turned to eliminating the wolves of this region again.
Whether you love or hate wolves, I'd like to think that as a
country we're moving closer to an age when we'll at least
recognize that wolves have a right to exist. The alternative is
that like Japan, we'll realize this when it's too late."
--Evelyn Boswell
