When it comes to Japan, aside from the ZZ factor and historical factors, many people will associate it with development, quality, courtesy, rigor, and environmental protection, which are related to cultural exports on the one hand, but on the other hand, the gap between developed and developing countries must be faced. But Japan is not a developed country from the beginning, they have also experienced a difficult road to industrialization, and in the process of entering a strong country, they have also paid a heavy price for the ecological environment. The Japanese Archipelago and the Ogasawara Islands are one of the most extinct areas in modern times, the Japanese sea lion, the Japanese otter, the Ryukyu forest pigeon, the Ogasawara forest pigeon, the Kasahara wax-billed finches, the Kaiser's ground eagle, etc. have all disappeared in the process of Japan's modernization, but their impact is not the greatest, and the extinction of two species of beasts of prey has brought disastrous consequences to Japan's ecology, that is, the Japanese wolf and the Hokkaido wolf.
According to Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, agricultural losses caused by wild birds and animals amount to 19.1 billion yen per year, of which 60% are caused by sika deer and wild boars. It is estimated that the number of sika deer outside Hokkaido in Japan has soared from 300,000 in 1989 to 3.05 million in 2013, and the number of wild boars has soared from 250,000 to 1 million. Hokkaido's sika deer are estimated at 700,000 in 2011, and the number of sika deer in Japan is expected to reach 4.35 million in 2023. As sika deer cross roads and railways, more than 10,000 traffic accidents occur in Hokkaido every year, resulting in economic losses of more than 5 billion yen.
Because Japan's sika deer have no natural enemies, so the only way to control their number is to hunt by hand, in 2013 Japan captured about 380,000 sika deer, less than one-tenth of the total, can not curb the surge of sika deer. In the 1970s, there were 500,000 registered hunters in Japan, but now there are only 100,000 left, two-thirds of the elderly over 60 years old, and about 1200 people are women.
In Japan, in addition to the rare Japanese iguana and Japanese macaques, the rest of the beasts can be hunted after applying for a license, sika deer and wild boar are encouraged to hunt beasts, and brown bears and black bears can also be hunted. There is an ancient group of hunters in Japan called "Ao Ghosts", who still maintain the tradition of hunting black bears, which has caused a lot of controversy.
Japan, an island country with an area of 370,000 square kilometers, has so many sika deer, and there are two main reasons.
The first point is the extinction of natural enemies.
Japanese wolf
There were originally two subspecies of wolves living in the Japanese archipelago, one was the Hokkaido wolf distributed around Hokkaido and Sakhalin Island and the Kuril Islands, also known as the Ezo wolf, which became extinct in 1889 due to environmental damage and human hunting. The other is the Japanese wolf distributed in Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu, also known as the Japanese dwarf wolf (wo wolf), the Honshu wolf, which became extinct in 1905.
Japan is a relatively closed island country, biological resources are relatively scarce, there are very few beasts, Japan's tigers in prehistory extinct, in addition to the two kinds of wolves, large beasts of prey are only Hokkaido brown bears and Japanese black bears, but brown bears and black bears are not pure carnivores, they are also difficult to catch up with the healthy sika deer, in the winter will hibernate, the number of sika deer can not play a controlling role. After the extinction of the two types of wolves in Japan, the sika deer had no natural enemies, just like the Australian rabbits.
This is the ecological catastrophe caused by the lack of top predators, and the role of top predators lies in this, they will control the number of herbivores and reduce agricultural losses. In North America, the increase in the number of mountain lions has reduced local deer, fewer deer crossing roads, fewer car accidents, fewer casualties and economic losses. In Mumbai, India, leopard predation on stray dogs reduces the harm of rabies and saves Mumbai hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
But The Japanese wolf became extinct in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the sika deer population only began to skyrocket in the second half of the 20th century, so there is another important reason.
That is Japan's urbanization and aging.
Japan's industrialization and urbanization in the second half of the last century was very rapid, and japan's urbanization rate has exceeded 93%, ranking among the top in the world. Of Japan's population of about 126 million, almost 117 million people live in large cities and towns, of which 36 million people live in the Tokyo metropolitan area of just over 10,000 square kilometers, 12 million people live in the Osaka metropolitan area of more than 4,000 square kilometers, and 7 million people live in the Nagoya metropolitan area of 2,800 square kilometers. These three metropolitan areas, with a total area of only 20,000 square kilometers, concentrate 44% of Japan's population.
Rural areas face serious ageing and the disappearance of villages.
According to a survey by Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Communications, as of April 2015, there were 15,568 "over-sparse villages" where the elderly over the age of 65 accounted for more than half of the residents, and 801 villages in which all residents were over the age of 65, of which 306 villages had all residents aged 75 or above, and more than 80% of the natural villages had a trend of population decline, and the rate of disappearance of villages accelerated.
The population is aging, fewer young adults can pick up shotguns, urbanization is in the late stages, large numbers of people live in cities, and rural areas are becoming less and less populous, giving up large amounts of land to wild animals.
The extinction of natural enemies, high urbanization rates and severe aging are the main reasons for the soaring number of sika deer in Japan.
Japan has also considered reintroducing wolves, but has been opposed by all sectors of society, especially outdoor enthusiasts and the travel community, who consider wolves dangerous. Japan's wolves have been extinct for more than a century, there are very few poisonous snakes and insects in Japan, and the rest of the beasts except Hokkaido brown bears, Japanese black bears and wild boars are not a threat to people, so Japan's wild is very safe. And the sika deer is far more popular than the wolf, and the deer in Nara, Japan is the sika deer. Therefore, many people believe that the introduction of wolves will increase the danger of outdoor activities and will hit Japan's tourism industry.
Second, it is also a question of which wolf should be introduced.
The Hokkaido wolf and the Japanese wolf are two subspecies that are very different, mainly in size.
Hokkaido Wolf
The few specimens and data left show that the Hokkaido wolf is a large wolf, Pocock once measured a specimen of a Hokkaido wolf, with a total skull length of 274 mm and a cheek width of 151 mm, which has reached the level of the Eurasian Timber Wolf, and the Eurasian Timber Wolf is the largest wolf subspecies in Eurasia, with an average male of 40-50 kg and a female average of 35-40 kg, and it is closely related to the Hokkaido wolf.
The Japanese wolf is a small wolf, so it is also known as a wolf and a dwarf wolf, Pocock measured the adult male specimen, the total length of the skull is 205mm, the cheek width is 120mm, and the Arab wolf is equivalent, the Arab wolf averages 18 kg for males and 12 kg for females, which is really pitifully small.
The Hokkaido wolf is several times the size of the Japanese wolf, so should it be the introduction of a large wolf like the Hokkaido wolf or a small wolf like the Japanese wolf? Or are they introduced separately? According to the plan, Japan wants to introduce large wolves from Russia, but the resistance is too great to implement it so far.
Wolves occupy an important place in Japanese culture, known as the roaring god in ancient times, but the Japanese have not seen their own wolves for more than a hundred years, and the wolves in the zoo are mostly the big bad wolves in North America and the TimberWolves of Russia.