The Lost Wolves of Japan

Preface

PREFACE When it comes to our relationship with wolves, we have both come a long way and gone nowhere at all. While I was revising the manuscript of this book, a disturbing incident occurred near Bozeman that reminded me of this fact. In March 2004, wolves in the Madison Valley attacked several head of livestock. In one frightening episode, a rancher watched helplessly as wolves mauled his dog to death; his wife noticed that wolves had urinated on a snowbank near where their children play. Within a week of the wolf attacks, the headline ofthe Bozeman Daily Chronicle read, "Killer WolfPacks Marked for Death," after Montana politicians began clamoring for the wolves to be destroyed. Governor Judy Martzwas among those politicians who made hay from wolf hides. "Families are afraid to allow their children to playoutdoors ," she claimed in a letter to Ed Bangs, wolf recovery leader for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Bangs swiftly ordered the eradication of all wolves in the Madison Valley. He also noted to reporters, however, that the trouble had started when poachers had shot three adult members ofthe Sentinel pack. Without these adults, he explained, "you basically have a bunch of teenagers walking through cattle." Within days, federal trappers had shot these teenage wolves from helicopters while some of them stood snared in steel traps at baiting stations in the Madison Range; some ranchers were also given permission to shoot wolves on sight. Federal trappers even kept alive one badly injured collared wolf, apparently shot illegally, in the hopes that it would somehow limp along, despite its loss of blood, and lead them to any remaining wolves XVI Preface so that trappers could shoot them as well. Because the Sentinel and Ennis Lake wolves had killed two steers, one heifer, and a stock dog, they were eradicated. As I watched this sad event unfold I reflected on the book I had just written , and I realized that the Madison VaHey incident was replete with the same intense emotions that always seem to surface when people deal with, write about, or interact with wolves. I have tried to capture some of those emotions in these pages. When it comes to wolves, rarely is there ever a right or wrong path to follow or a good or bad decision to make, despite the fact that so many people think otherwise; science, the reality of wolf ecology, and the economy of ranching always surrender to anger, anxiety, fear, and passion. I've never met a person who, when asked for his or her opinions about wolf recovery, responded with indifference. Even among supposedly wilderness-loving Montanans, people just lose their heads when it comes to wolves (see the Bozeman Daily Chronicle online edition). I come from a Montana family and so I sympathize with these ranchers at many levels.Mainly, I knowthat the odds are already stacked against farming families and so I do not blame them for being angry at one more obstacle being placed in front of them. But I also sympathize with wolves. The brutalityoftheir hunting and killing that so offends the sensibilities ofsome today will never even approach the cruelty with which we have tortured their kind throughout the ages. History tells us that ours is the disturbing species, not theirs: had humans, in some twist of evolutionary fate, not inherited the earth, it would surely belong to wolves, and they probably would have proved better stewards. In retrospect, what brought me to admire wolves, to cherish them as a precious part of our national heritage, to value them as an integral part of our wildlands, and to sympathize with their sad plight was researching the history of Japan's extinct wolves, which is the subject of this book. But Japanese ranchers and upland hunters are also an important part of this story, and for them as well I have gained a new level of respect. Wolves truly are, as some Native Americans believe, teachers of the highest order; they can tell us something about the health of our planet and of ourselves. But I believe they can teach us something about our history as well. So to the Sentinel and Ennis Lake wolves and to their brethren throughout the ages and around the world I can only apologize for our arrogance and cruelty and for our failure to learn our lessons. When writing this book, I have tried to heed the lessons taught by Japan's wolves and the hunters...