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Duration:	13:17
Uploaded:	2026-05-13
Last sync:	2026-05-13 16:15

Two wolves once prowled the mountains and forests of Japan. They were revered as deities, and respected as protectors of travelers and fields, until forces from outside the islands changed everything. Now, one wolf is gone for good, while the other, even though it’s likely extinct, is still being hunted.



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Sources:

Walker, B. L. (2009). The lost wolves of Japan. University of Washington Press.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191011-the-hunt-for-japans-ghost-wolves

https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042(20)31101-9?uuid=uuid%3Ae79d710d-128d-49cd-80e4-69c957914168

https://www.env.go.jp/earth/coop/coop/materials/08-ttmnce/08-ttmnce-21.pdf

https://www.akarenga-h.jp/en/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/p2_3_e.pdf

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1055790314002711?via%3Dihub

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/ecology-and-evolution/articles/10.3389/fevo.2022.782528/full#B86

https://bioone.org/journals/zoological-science/volume-26/issue-11/zsj.26.765/Mitochondrial-DNA-Analysis-of-the-Japanese-Wolf-Canis-Lupus-Hodophilax/10.2108/zsj.26.765.full

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7753132/

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/gigantism-and-dwarfism-islands/

https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042(20)31101-9?uuid=uuid%3Ae79d710d-128d-49cd-80e4-69c957914168

https://ainu-upopoy.jp/en/ainu-culture/

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1178791.pdf

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5380354/

https://features.japantimes.co.jp/1-search-japan-wolves/

https://features.japantimes.co.jp/2-search-japan-wolves/

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/10/science/thylacines-tasmanian-tigers-sightings.html

https://australianhumanitiesreview.org/2018/12/02/the-cultural-politics-of-mourning-in-the-era-of-mass-extinction-thylacine-specimen-p762/

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2019/09/13/environment/debate-japans-extinct-wolf-grows/

https://psmag.com/environment/can-wolves-save-japanese-forests/

https://japan-wolf.org/proposal/

https://japan-forward.com/reintroducing-wolves-a-new-hope-for-japanese-ecosystems/

https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/cobi.14130

https://www.cabidigitallibrary.org/doi/full/10.1079/9781800622975.0019

https://features.japantimes.co.jp/4-search-japan-wolves/

https://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/ainu-prejudice-pride/

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abh2419

https://ainu.ninjal.ac.jp/folklore/corpus/en/

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Images:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aPwnx80qbr3nGhaavnc83C3tYFNqQRJ9P12fh_nZzWc/edit?usp=sharing