EXTINCT ANIMALS IN JAPAN: WOLVES, BIRDS AND OTTERS

EXTINCT ANIMALS IN JAPAN

illustration of a Japanese wolf from the mid 19th century

The Ryukyu pigeon, Bonin thrush, Japanese sea lion, and Okinawa flying fox have become extinct. The last Japanese sea lion was seen on a Korean settlement on the island of Takeshima after the Korean War.

Extinct Mammals in Japan
Japanese wolf (Canis lupus hodophilax)
Ezo wolf (Canis lupus hattai)
Japanese sea lion (Zalophus californianus japonicus)
Okinawa flying fox (Okinawa fruit bat, Pteropus loochoensis)
Bonin pipistrelle (Pipistrellus sturdeei)

Extinct Brackish-Water or Fresh-Water Fishes in Japan
Oncorhynchus kawamurae
Pungitius kaibarae

Extinct Birds in Japan

Rufous night heron (Nycticorax caledonicus crassirostris, Ogasawara island subspecies)
Crested shelduck (Tadorna cristata)
White-browed crake (Poliolimnas cinereus brevipes, Iwo islands sub-species)
Ryukyu wood pigeon (Columba jouyi)
Bonin wood pigeon (Columba versicolor)
Miyako kingfisher (Halcyon miyakoensis)

White-bellied black woodpecker (Dryocopus javensis richardsi, Far east subspecies)
Wren (Troglodytes troglodytes orii, Daito island subspecies)
Bonin island thrush (Turdus terrestris)
Borodino bush warbler (Cettia diphone restrictus, Daito islands subspecies)
Varied tit (Parus varius orii, Daito islands subspecies)
Bonin islands honeyeater (Apalopteron familiare familiare, Mukoshima islands subspecies)
Bonin islands grosbeak (Chaunoproctus ferreorostris)

Japanese River Otter Classified as Extinct

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Japanese river otter Japanese otters (Lutra nippon) were once widespread in Japan. Their population suddenly shrank in the 1930s. The last recorded sighting of one occurred in a river in Susaki, Kochi prefecture in 1979. Once common even around Tokyo, Japanese otters were fond of eating shrimp, crabs and fish. Their probable extinction is attributed fishing nets, crab keels and the concreting of riverbanks where they made their homes.

In August 2012, Jiji Press reported: “Japanese river otters, which were registered as one of the nation's special natural treasures, have been designated as extinct following the Environment Ministry's revision of its Red List of endangered species excluding fish. The otter is the first Japanese mammal to be classified as an extinct species that was confirmed alive during the Showa era (1926-1989). The last sighting in Japan of a Japanese river otter was in Kochi Prefecture in 1979. The ministry therefore concluded the species was extinct and changed its endangered species status Tuesday. [Source: Jiji Press, August 30, 2012]

In August 2017, the Japan Times reported the first sighting of a Japanese river otter in at least 38 years, according to University of the Ryukyus. It was caught on camera on Tsushima Island, which lies between South Korea and Japan. But the team that announced the discovery was hesitant to confidently declare that the otter was, in fact, a Japanese River Otter. It could be a different species of otter [Source: Bryan Ke Nextshark, August 18, 2017]

Japanese Wolves

Wolves were common in Japan until the end of the 19th century. There were two kinds: the Japanese wolf, which ranged across Honshu, Kyushu and Shikoku; and the Ezo wolf (Hokkaido wolf, Ainu wolf), which ranged across Hokkaido and was revered by the Ainu as a howling God. Both kinds of wolf are now extinct.

Japanese wolves were smaller than wolves found on the Asian mainland. They sometimes had yellow fur and tails with rounded tips. Their main prey was deer. Kevin Short wrote in the Japan News: Japanese wolves once roamed the mountains of Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu islands. These were not especially impressive critters as wolves go, being substantially smaller than the huge grey wolves of Eurasia and North America. Japanese wolves stood only a half a meter or so at the shoulder, and probably weighed only about 15 to 20 kilograms. In the National Science Museum at Ueno Park a stuffed specimen is displayed right alongside an American coyote, and the two species appear to be about the same size and build.[Source: Kevin Short, Japan News, July 15, 2014]

There were many reports of wolf attacks especially in April and May when mother were raising their young. During the great Teno famine in 1834, when corpses were piled up in great numbers and buried in shallow graves, wolves began digging up the corpses and eating them. They developed a taste for human flesh and, joined by stray dogs, began attacking children and weakened adults. Soldiers had to be called in to protect villagers.

Wolf Folklore in Japan

Wolves were never vilified in children's stories in Japan like they were in the West but they were characterized as dangerous despite their small size. In many parts of Japan wolves were were deeply revered. Shinto shrines sometimes featured them a guardian gods; farmers worshiped them as deities; and gamblers carried wolf fangs for good luck. People who lived in the mountains where wolves were most often seen called the animals “mountain dogs.” Many of these people worshiped wolf spirits as protectors of crops from hares, deer and other pests.

Kevin Short wrote in the Japan News: In the Chichibu and Okutama Mountains west of Tokyo, the wolf was traditionally revered as a messenger or familiar spirit serving the local kami deities. Keeping a wolf skull or wolf charm in one’s home was thought to ward off burglars and other misfortune. Wolf spirits are still worshipped today at the Mitsumine Shrine in Chichibu. [Source: Kevin Short, Japan News, July 15, 2014]

There are many stories about wolves in Japan. A favorite is the “okuri-okami” legend. The okuri-okami is a wolf that follows closely behind people walking along lonely country or mountain roads after dark. You can just barely hear the soft sound of something padding up from behind — but if you stop to listen the padding stops as well. When this occurs you must walk very carefully, because if you happen to trip or fall the wolf will dash up and tear you to pieces. Variations on this folklore theme were widespread throughout Japan. In some versions the wolf is replaced by a huge dog (okuri-inu).

Classification of Japanese Wolves

Most scientists regard Japanese wolves as a subspecies of wolves found in Eurasia and North America. Others regarded them as a completely different species. Kevin Short wrote in the Japan News: Only three stuffed specimens of the Japanese wolf remain in Japan. In addition to the National Science Museum, there is one at the University of Tokyo’s Faculty of Agriculture, and another at the Wakayama Prefecture Museum of Natural History. The type specimen, which was used to make the formal biological description, resides at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center at Leiden in the Netherlands. This specimen was collected in 1826 at Osaka by the naturalist and physician Philipp Franz von Siebold, and was sent back to the natural history museum at Leiden, where the Dutch zoologist Coenraad Jacob Temminck studied and formally described the animal. [Source: Kevin Short, Japan News, July 15, 2014]

Temminck determined the Japanese wolf to be a separate species (Canis hodophilax) from the common Eurasian grey wolf (Canis lupus). Later researchers, however, judged the Japanese form to be a regional subspecies of the grey wolf (C.l. hodophilax). In Japan there is still a lively controversy over this classification. One theory holds that the Japanese wolf is a relict species, the last remnant of a very primitive form of wolf that was once widespread. Later, the primitive forms on the continent were replaced by the modern grey wolf, but here in Japan they managed to survive in isolation.

To help settle this controversy, the Gifu University Faculty of Applied Biological Sciences conducted mitrochondrial DNA analysis of samples taken from wolf skulls and bones from various areas of Japan. The results indicated that the Japanese wolf is indeed a subspecies of the continental grey wolf. A small number of wolves may have entered Japan from the Korean Peninsula during the glacial period. Afterwards, when the earth warmed and sea levels rose, the Japanese wolves were cut off from the continental populations. As is often the case when continental animals migrate to islands, the Japanese wolves gradually became smaller in size.

Extinction of Wolves in Japan

illustration of an Ezo wolf from the mid 19th century

The Ezo wolf disappeared at the end of the 19th century. The last known Japanese wolf was captured in Fukui Province 1901. Another was found in 1905 in the mountains near Higashiyoshinomura, Nara Prefecture, and clubbed to death by loggers. The wolves became extinct due to hunting, diseases such as distemper picked up from dogs, loss of and habitat due to human population increases. Many were shot and poisoned after they began feeding on livestock because their natural prey, deer, were shot by farmers as pests.

Kevin Short wrote in the Japan News: The Japanese wolf began decreasing in numbers after the Meiji Restoration of 1867. One reason was certainly the introduction of gun hunting. Contagious diseases such as rabies may also have been a factor, as well as general loss of habitat. The Hokkaido wolf, or ezo-okami, a different subspecies of the same grey wolf (C.l. hattai), was also wiped out by the late 19th century. [Source: Kevin Short, Japan News, July 15, 2014]

Some researchers continue to insist that the Japanese wolf represented an independent species. Others even believe that the species may be still extant. The official interpretation is that the wolf has been extinct since 1905, but there have been numerous sightings afterwards. The most notable of these is a series of photographs taken in the Chichibu Mountains of Saitama Prefecture in October of 1996. The animal in the photos closely resembles the type specimen in Leiden, especially in the very small ears and black-tipped tail. A close look at the photos, however, shows a ring of worn fur around the animal’s neck, indicating that it formerly wore a collar. In 2000, a high school principal said he photographed a canid resembling a Japanese wolf in the mountains of central Kyushu. Experts who studied the photographs said the animal had characteristics peculiar to the Japanese wolf such as a round tip on its tail.

There has been some discussion of introducing wolves from China or the Korean peninsula to Japan, if for no other reason to control the exploding population of sitka deer, but there is little chance that this will happen soon.

Discovery of “Extinct” Trout in Japan

In December 2010, a freshwater fish — the Kunimasu trout “thought to have been “extinct” for 60 years — was rediscovered in Saiko Lake in Yamanashi Prefecture near Mt. Fuji. It was thought the fish only inhabited Lake Tazawa, Japan’s deepest lake, in Aita Prefecture in northern Japan, where the fish was last seen there in 1948. It had been thought the trout died out as a result of the introduction of highly acidic water from a river into the lake.

One of the redisoverers of the Kunimasu trout was a weird television personality named Masayuki Miyazawa who goes by the name Sakana-kun (“Little Mr. Fish”) and wears a strange fish hat when ge appears on television and makes public appearances. Fisherman in Saiko Lake had been catching Kunimasu fish for years without realizing there was anything special about the fish. The trout in Saiko Lake are thought to be descendants of fish that hatched from about 100,000 eggs brought there from from Lake Tazawa in 1935.

Black bass lay eggs in water less than 1.5 meters, Some places with dams have had success getting rid of the fish by dropping water levels in lakes to below 1.5 meters which causes the bass eggs to die while having relatively little impact on other aquatic life.

Image Sources: Japan-Animals blog,Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: Animal Diversity Web animaldiversity.org ; National Geographic, Live Science, Natural History magazine, David Attenborough books, Daily Yomiuri, Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan National Tourist Organization (JNTO), New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Discover magazine, The New Yorker, Time, BBC, CNN, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, Wikipedia, The Guardian, Top Secret Animal Attack Files website and various books and other publications.

Last updated March 2025