The Lost Wolves of Japan

6. Wolf Extinction Theories and the Birth of Japan's Discipline of Ecology

6 WOLF EXTINCTION THEORIES AND THE BIRTH OF JAPAN ' S DISCIPLINE OF ECOLOGY Today, the word "ecology" refers to the study of the interaction between a living thing (or things) and its environment, but such was not always the case. In 1902, illustrating this point, a debate broke out in the editorial pages of the journal Science on the origin and the meaning ofthe word "ecology." Those scientists who participated in the debate agreed that the word "ecology " originated from "recology," but that much like other commonly used words, such as economy (once also "reconomy"), the 0 was eventually dropped. Participants also agreed that Ernst Haeckel, the German disciple of Charles Darwin, was the first to use the word "ecology" (actually Oecologie)-in his pioneering 1866 Generelle Morphologie der Organismen.' But more interesting than the humdrum quibbling over when and where the word "ecology" first appeared, or whether the 0 should be dropped from "recology," were the attempts to fine-tune its actual meaning as an emerging scientific methodology and academic discipline.2 Of specific interest to us are the attempts by zoologists to appropriate the word from botanists and apply it to the scientific study of animals. In his letter to Science, botanist Charles Bessey pointed out that "ecology ," although first used by Haeckel, actually came to the attention of botanists in the United States only in 1893, at the Madison Botanical Congress. "The word ecology has been in quite general use in the botanical world for the past eight years," wrote Bessey.3 The botanist William Ganong, offering a preliminary definition, wrote that ecology "signifies the science ofthe adaptation oforganisms to their surroundings, a field ofstudy Wolf Extinction Theories in which botanists have been more active than zoologists."4 That zoologists would begin to explore the possibility of using ecology as a methodology for understanding the animal world at the turn of the century suggests that zoology had reached a sort of impasse in its ability to explain the relationship between animals, natural evolution, and the ties of an organism to its constantly changing environment. Perhaps entomologist William Morton Wheeler's thoughtful foray into the 1902 debate in Science best captures the sense ofanxiety and excitement inherent in whether to apply the word "ecology " to the study of complex animals. Wheeler began his thoughts with the observation that zoologists need a "satisfactory technical term for [the study of] animal behavior and related subjects," one like the «ecology" used bybotanists to describe their scientific enterprise. Wheeler believed, however, that botanists should be left in«undisputed possession" of «ecology," because, quite simply, the term did not adequately fit the scientific goals of the study of animals. That is, when Haeckel first used the term «ecology," he saw it as describing an «economy of nature," suggesting, among other things, a «habitat" or the "dwelling or nest of an organism," and not what zoologists should be concerned with, which was the inner workings of the individual organism itself. As Haeckel wrote, «By ecology we mean the body of knowledge concerning the economy of nature-the investigation of the total relations of the animal both to its inorganic and to its organic environments."5 However, Wheeler suggested that too many variables shaped an animal's behavior and its relationship with the environment, and hence animals could not be studied under the rubric of «ecology." Indeed, ecology did not work for zoologists because of "the great complexity of the zoological as compared with the botanical phenomena to be organized and methodized." Wheeler continued by explaining that botanists study the external influences on plants, "the effects of the living and inorganic environment on organisms which are relatively simple in their response." By contrast, zoologists investigate the internal nature or "character" of complex animals, "the expressions of a centralized principle represented by the activity of the nervous system or some more general and obscure 'archreus' which regulates growth, regeneration and adaptation, carrying the type onward to a harmonious development of its parts and functions, often in apparent opposition to or violation of the environmental conditions." Hence, as Wheeler suggested,«plant societies" are different from «social animals," implying that animals should not be studied (not to mention "organized and methodized" in the form of an academic discipline) within the framework of ecology. Instead, 186 Wolf Extinction Theories Wheeler proposed "ethology" as a more adequate technical term, one that suggested an investigation of the "nature of...