Does Japan have wolves?
If we don't count those in zoos and only consider the wild ones, then there truly aren't any. Although Japan has many mountains and forests, there are no traces of wolves in the wild.
However, about a hundred years ago, wolves did exist in Japan.
The Japanese wolf, also known as the Honshu wolf, was a subspecies of wolves and was the smallest in size, with a body length of about 1 meter.
The petite Japanese wolves liked to howl collectively at dawn and dusk when their howling resounded through the valleys, earning them the Japanese name "howling gods." Moreover, since wolves chased and hunted deer that trampled on farmlands, the Japanese people also regarded them as "protectors of the crops."
But due to a series of infectious diseases like distemper, industrialization which reduced forest areas, and government-endorsed wolf eradication campaigns, the population of Japanese wolves gradually declined and was ultimately declared extinct around 1907.
