Last known Japanese wolf said killed in 1910

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http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/newse/20040229wo71.htm

 

Last known Japanese wolf said killed in 1910

 

Yomiuri Shimbun

 

The last remaining Japanese wolf was discovered to

have been a wolf killed in Fukui Prefecture in 1910,

according to findings published in the latest issue of

Tokyo University of Agriculture's scientific journal,

Animate.

 

Previously, it had been believed the last of the

species was killed in Nara Prefecture in 1905.

However, upon studying a photograph of a wolf captured

five years later, specialists argued that it was a

Japanese wolf.

 

Visiting researcher at the National Science Museum

Mizuko Yoshiyuki, a former professor at Tokyo

University of Agriculture, announced the results of

the study along with Yoshinori Imaizumi, former head

of animal studies at the museum and the leading expert

on the Japanese wolf.

 

On the night of Aug. 3, 1910, an animal that looked

like a wolf appeared at the Matsudaira Agricultural

Experiment Station in Fukui and was killed by research

assistants. The following day, a photographer from the

city took a photograph of it.

 

The photo was later examined at a meeting of a

Japanese society for the study of mammals in 1962. But

because the animal was thought to be larger than a

Japanese wolf, and a Korean wolf on display in the

prefecture had escaped from a nearby zoo at around the

time the photo was taken, it was thought to most

likely have been a Korean wolf.

 

However, a recently discovered diary from the

Matsudaira station showed that the wolf in the photo

weighed about 18.75 kilograms, much less than a Korean

wolf, which usually weighs between 25 and 45

kilograms. Also, the day after the wolf was captured

and killed, employees from a nearby zoo confirmed that

the animal was not the missing Korean wolf, according

to the diary.

 

With this new information, Yoshiyuki and others

reexamined the original photograph. Based on

distinguishing characteristics, such as a tail that is

rounded, as if it had been bobbed, short legs relative

to its body length and low body weight, the

researchers concluded that the animal was a Japanese

wolf.

 

 

 

 

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