日本狼的神秘發現(中英)
亞吉（Hiroshi Yagi）開車穿過秩父多摩甲斐國立公園(Chichuibu Tama Kai National Park)時，這只動物從他左邊的小溪方向走了出來，從他前面經過，在離他的車兩米遠的地方停了下來。亞吉側身朝它走去，拍了幾張照片，牠一點也不害怕。這只動物顯然對人類的存在無動於衷。要麼是牠在人類身邊很舒服，要麼因為牠是這個棲息地的頂級捕食者而感受不到威脅。亞吉說：「那是23年前的事了，當時我並沒有多少專業知識。但我想，這一定是一隻狼。」
亞吉是一位登山愛好者，在日本中部秩父（Chichibu）附近的山裏度過很多時間，但這是他第一次與自己尋找大半生的動物面對面。
亞吉說：「我決定試著給它一個奧森貝（osenbei一種大米餅乾)，然後伸手遞給牠。我習慣於用右手，所以我把餅乾放在左邊，認為即使牠咬我的左臂，我也不怕。」
「牠就在我前面，我把米餅放在牠的嘴下，牠沒有接受，只是站在那裏。我聞了一下，看牠是否有野獸的氣味，但牠沒有氣味。牠像孩童一樣，既不知道危險也不害怕。」
據記載，日本狼已經滅絶了至少100年。已知的最後一具日本狼遺骸1905年被一位動物學家買下，並送到了倫敦自然歷史博物館。
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一些狼的骨頭、毛皮和糞便都是1905年以前發現的，這使得亞吉在那個十月的夜晚看到一隻存活的日本狼的可能性很小。亞吉為什麼這麼確信遇到了一隻狼？可能同許多日本農村人一樣，早在很多年前就聽說過狼的蹤跡。
當地媒體報道
亞吉對日本狼的追蹤開始於大約20年前的1996年。他參加的登山隊擁有一個山間小屋，他在那裏值夜班。
亞吉說：「就在那時，我聽到一聲嚎叫。我知道日本狼在明治時代(1912年結束)就被宣佈滅絶了，但我想，不存在的動物就不會嚎叫。」於是他開始了對日本狼長達50年的搜尋。
那天晚上，他悄悄走到可能有活著動物的遺跡處，拍到了一些照片。這些照片公布後點燃了秩父當地居民的想像力，一位著名的日本動物學家對這些照片進行了查看，稱其為「極像狼的動物」，但沒有確切說這就是已經滅絶的狼。儘管許多學者對牠的存在表示懷疑，但一些專家得出結論，亞吉照片中的動物與日本狼非常相似。這種動物後來被稱為「秩父亞肯」（Chichibu yaken）或秩父「野狗」（Chichibu 『wild dog』）。
不久，其他日本居民也開始講述類似的故事。
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美籍日本記者馬丁(Alex Martin)在聽到亞吉的故事後說：「我母親曾告訴我，她在秩父的朋友，一位50多歲的女士，聲稱去年12月在她的花園裏看到了一隻類似狼的動物。有很多關於目擊到、聽到嚎叫和發現所謂的狼骨、糞便、皮毛的報道，這使一些人相信，這種動物可能還存在，在日本山區活動。」
用馬丁的話說，日本狼在文學和民間傳說中經常被描繪成一種神秘的動物。日本狼的具體名字hodophilax翻譯過來就是「道路守護者」，這是根據日本傳說中的「奧庫裏-岡上」（okuri-okami），「送狼」或「護送狼」而來。牠們在山徑上跟隨旅行者，並在旅途中守護他們。但也有其它版本說「奧庫裏-岡上」攻擊那些跌倒的旅行者或對狼不敬的人。
這些傳說很可能是源於狼的真實行為，狼在攻擊獵物之前會尾隨獵物長達數公里，給人一種牠們是在保護旅行者的假像，而實際上牠們是在狩獵。
日本人崇拜狼，尤其是在秩父市，那裏有很多供奉狼的神龕。據說，其中一座名為三峰（Mitsumine Shrine）神社的神殿，是由一位王子建造的，這位王子在執行征服交戰部落的任務中，在奧秩父（Okuchichibu）山脈中迷失了方向，後來被一隻大白狼帶到了安全地帶。
日本現代藝術和文學也借鑒了狼的形像。動畫電影《幽靈公主》(1997)，是根據三峰神社的傳說改編，其中一位大白狼女神，撫養了一個叫桑（san）的人類孩子,影片由石田百合子（Yuriko Ishida）在日本飾演，丹尼斯（Claire Danes）在英語版本中飾演，成為電影的主角之一。
馬丁說：「就我個人而言，我發現對這種動物的研究不僅涉及科學，還涉及民俗、歷史、宗教等諸多方面，這些都有助於描繪出一幅生動地畫面，在前現代日本，迷信和傳說是日常生活的一部分。」
業餘搜索
由於亞吉的研究越來越受歡迎，這位勇敢的研究者現在得到了20多人的支持，他們都是業餘愛好者，其中有5到6個人經常活動。
亞吉說：「當這些照片被公開時，許多人站出來分享他們聽到狼的叫聲或目擊到狼的故事。正是這種親緣關係，讓我們對所見所聞產生了信心，也促成了這次搜尋，現在又有了新的動力。」這種與狼的個人聯繫，激發了對狼存在的信念。「我們要一起揭露真相。」
但是亞吉承認，他23年前拍的照片並不能作為確鑿證據。
現在，正利用現代技術，來獲取更多的證據，其中包括在奧秩父山脈上安裝的70台感應紅外線攝像機。大約一年前，錄下了三隻鹿從其中一台攝像機旁跑過的鏡頭。一開始看起來沒什麼可興奮的，但仔細觀察後，亞吉從圖面伴隨的聲音中，似乎聽到了狼嚎。
亞吉說：「我們把記錄下來的視頻拿給一位專家看，他把視頻裏的聲音和北海道旭川（Asahikawa）動物園裏飼養的東方狼的嚎叫聲進行了比較。他以99.5%的把握宣稱，這兩種叫聲來自同一種動物，而且我已經收到了狼錄音真實性的證明。」
在這段視頻中可以聽到日本狼的嚎叫聲。你可能需要戴上耳機才能聽清楚。
亞吉說：「50年前，當我第一次聽到狼的叫聲時，我告訴了許多人，我相信那是狼。但他們的邏輯是，『如果牠已經不存在了，那麼牠就不可能是』。然而我相信牠的存在，如果是，那麼牠就存在。正是這種不信任和否定的邏輯，促使我要近一步證明。」
「有時候，這條路似乎還很長。」
要解決日本狼是否還在秩父山脈中四處遊蕩的爭論，可靠的方法是獲取DNA證據。這比任何數量的照片和錄音都更有說服力，目擊到的是狼而不是被馴化的野狗。
但還有另一種可能性。狼能夠與馴養的狗繁衍後代，通過與當地的寵物雜交，狼的種群有可能在被認為滅絶之後存留下來。23年前，亞吉看到了小而溫順像狼一樣的小動物。現實中，狼和寵物狗之間的交叉非常罕見，以至於一個穩定的種群不太可能存活下來。許多大型的馴養狗也能發出類似狼一樣的嚎叫，因此，那些冒險進入山區的流浪狗也許可以解釋當地人聽到的聲音。
特維說，系統地收集和分析當地居民發現狼的報告，將是非常重要的下一步，通過這些報告可以了解在分佈方面可能會有的模式。亞吉表示同意。如果他們能從70台遠程攝像機中找到更多的證據，就可以決定在什麼位置布設一個無害的陷阱，以便捕獲一個進行DNA測試。
亞吉說：「我一直對尋找狼充滿了熱情，這也是為什麼我有幸看到了狼。我相信我是被上帝選中來發現並證明日本狼存在的人。不幸的是，總有反對者，我在想，離開講道台！到山裏去找牠們吧。」
亞吉決定繼續耐心地朝著目標努力。
馬丁表示：「就我個人而言，我傾向於相信山裏存在某種東西，無論是滅絶動物本身還是其後代，而且我們有足夠的時間，資金和技術來揭示它是什麼。」馬丁在亞吉的啟發下繼續自己的研究，並有了新的線索。
馬丁說：「兩周前，我母親告訴我，她聽到了秩父家後面的森林裏發出一連串不尋常的嚎叫聲，這促使我在該地區安裝了紅外線跟蹤攝像頭。我在等著看我能找到什麼。」
拉撒路（Lazarus）物種
從歷史上看，國際自然保護聯盟（IUCN）使用「50年規則」來確定一個物種或亞種是否已經滅絶，雖然它現在被更加細微的物種鑒定方法所取代，但這種方法要求在確定一個物種滅絶之前，從一個物種範圍內有針對性的調查中收集證據。事實是，對一些被廣泛跟蹤和研究的物種來說，需要長達50年在野外沒有觀測到是不必要的。
對另外一些很少在實地目睹動物的人來說，這個規定有些武斷和不公平。倫敦動物研究所動物學會的特維（Samuel Turvey）說：「西方科學家從未見過野生的索拉（saola）——一種美麗的長角亞洲森林羚羊，是世界上最稀有的哺乳動物之一。關於牠在越南和老撾的分佈信息，主要是基於當地獵人和村民的軼事報道。」以索拉為例，少數幾張照片是西方科學家所見最多的，所以50年的規則已經過時了。
特維說：「在某些情況下，已經滅絶的物種可能出現在極其遙遠和難以到達的地方，研究人員很少去那裏，所以牠們的狀態仍然未知，而不一定已經滅絶。證明滅絶的複雜性因理論上的挑戰而變得更加困難，你不能提供證偽，僅僅因為你沒有發現一個物種，這是否意味著你沒有在正確的地方或一年中正確的時間足夠努力地去尋找，而不一定意味著牠不再存在？」
特維警告說，在一個多世紀以來沒有確定的可接受的目擊事件的情況下，日本狼的繼續生存是不太可能的，但也不一定是不可能的。
特維說：「狼是群居動物，牠們成群結隊地生活在一起，併發出響亮的嚎叫聲，這一事實降低了牠們存在的可能性。如果牠們仍然生活在某個地方，那麼與孤獨、沉默的動物相比，牠們更容易被發現。」
他說：「這讓我們想到了數據數量與數據質量之間的棘手問題。據報道，目擊事件發生在最後一次確定記錄的日期之後，但這些目擊事件沒有得到核實，而且也無法證實究竟看到了什麼。這也是科學家們在試圖確定其他正式滅絶物種，如袋狼（thylacine）和象牙喙啄木鳥（ivory-billed woodpecker）的生存可能性時，所面臨的同樣令人困惑的情況。」
一些愛好者相信，袋狼通常稱為塔斯馬尼亞虎，仍然存在。一些業餘偵探已經在塔斯馬尼亞南部的森林中，用錄相機來尋找它存在的證據，並在2017年發佈了一段視頻，聲稱展示了這種動物，因錄像的質量還沒有定論。
特維說：「那些生活在與可能滅絶的物種同一地區的當地人，所做的報告絶對不應該被忽視。這類報告往往是有關偏遠棲息地，珍稀動物的唯一信息來源，使用標凖的生態方法進行調查，需要大量資金。」
從滅絶中恢復過來的生物被稱為「拉撒路」（Lazarus）物種。最著名的例子是腔棘魚（coelacanth），一種數百萬年都保持不變的魚類，直到1938年才從化石記錄中被發現，在南非海岸發現了一個鮮活的例子。人們認為世界上只剩下幾百隻腔棘魚了。但牠們的自然棲息地在深海中，這可以解釋為什麼牠們這麼長時間沒有被發現。
Could an apex predator, thought to be extinct for 100 years, still be roaming the Japanese mountains? Some enthusiasts think they have the evidence.
Author image
By William Park and Johanna Airth
18th October 2019
H
Hiroshi Yagi was driving through the Chichibu Tama Kai National Park when the animal came up from the stream on his left, passed in front of him and stopped about two metres (6.5ft) away from his car. It showed no fear as he edged towards it, firing off several photographs. The creature was apparently unfazed by the presence of a human. Either it was comfortable being around humans, or felt unthreatened because of its status as the apex predator in this habitat.
“This was 23 years ago, and I didn’t have much technical knowledge then,” says Yagi. “But I thought, ‘This must be a wolf’.”
Yagi, a keen mountaineer, spends a lot of time in the mountains around Chichibu in central Japan, but this was the first time he had come face to face with an animal he had spent the best part of his life searching for.
“I decided I would try and give him an osenbei (a rice cracker) and put out my hand and offered it to him,” says Yagi. “I am right-handed, so I offered the cracker to him in my left, thinking that even if he bit my left arm, I would be alright."
“He was right in front of me at this point. I had brought the rice cracker right under his mouth. But he didn’t take it. He just stood there. I tried to see if he smelled like a wild animal, but he didn’t. He had no smell. And just like a new-born baby, he had no knowledge or fear of danger.”
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Wolves have been extinct in Japan for at least 100 years, according to scientific records. The last known Japanese wolf remains were bought by a zoologist in 1905 who sent the pelt to the Natural History Museum, London.
The discoveries of bones, fur and scat, which all appear to date from before 1905, makes the likelihood that Yagi saw a living Japanese wolf that October night seem remote. Why was Yagi so convinced that he had encountered a wolf? Because he, like many other people in rural Japan, it would transpire, had heard the telltale sign of wolves in the night many years earlier.
Local reports
Yagi’s pursuit of the Japanese wolf began about 20 years before his sighting in 1996. He was on night watch duty at a mountain lodge that was owned by a mountaineering group he was part of.
“It was then when I heard a howl,” says Yagi. “I knew that the Japanese wolf had been declared extinct since the Meji era , but I thought, ‘An animal that doesn’t exist can’t howl’.” And so began his 50-year search for the Japanese wolf.
The photographs he captured on that night as he crept to within an arm’s length of what could have been a living relic ignited the imaginations of local Chichibu residents after they were examined by a prominent Japanese zoologist who described the animal as ‘extremely wolf-like’, without conclusively saying the animal was an extinct wolf. While many academics remained sceptical about their existence, some experts concluded that the animals in Yagi’s photos closely resembled the Japanese wolf. The animal became known as the “Chichibu yaken” (or the Chichibu “wild dog”).
Soon, other Japanese residents began coming forward with similar stories.
“My mother told me that her friend in Chichibu – a lady in her 50s – claims to have seen a wolf-like animal in her garden back in December,” says Alex Martin, an American-Japanese journalist who has started his own search after hearing Yagi’s story. “There have been numerous accounts of sightings, reports of howling and discoveries of purported wolf bones, droppings and fur that have led some to believe that the animal may still be alive and roaming the mountains of Japan.”
There have been numerous accounts of sightings, reports of howling and discoveries of purported wolf bones, droppings and fur – Alex Martin
The Japanese wolf is often portrayed in literature and folklore as a “mystical” animal, in the words of Martin. The specific name of the Japanese wolf, hodophilax, translates as “pathway guardian” in reference to the Japanese legend of “okuri-okami”, the "sending wolf" or “escorting wolf” who followed travellers on mountain trails and guarded them during their journey. Other versions of the folklore tell of okuri-okami who attack travellers who fall or who do not act respectfully towards the wolves.
What is likely is that the legends are borne from the real behaviour of wolves, who might stalk prey for many kilometres before attacking them, giving the impression they are protecting travellers, when in fact they are hunting.
The Japanese wolf is worshipped in Japan, and is particularly revered in Chichibu where many shrines pay tribute to the animals. One such shrine, Mitsumine Shrine, is said to have been founded by a prince, who after becoming lost in the mists of the Okuchichibu mountain range while on a mission to subdue a warring tribe, was guided to safety by a great white wolf.
Modern Japanese arts and literature also pay reference to the wolves. The animated film Princess Mononoke (1997), which is said to be based on the legend of the Mitsumine Shrine, features a great white wolf goddess that raises a human child called San, played by Yuriko Ishida in Japan and Claire Danes in the English version, who becomes one of the film’s protagonists.
“Personally, I've discovered that researching this animal involves various aspects – not only science, but folklore, history, religion and much more – things that help paint a vivid picture of how superstition and legends were very much a part of everyday life in pre-modern Japan,” says Martin.
The amateur search
Due to the swelling popularity of Yagi’s research, the intrepid researcher is now supported in his search by about 20 other individuals – all amateurs – five or six of whom are regularly active.
“When the pictures were made public, many other people came forward to share their stories of wolf cries or sightings,” says Yagi. “It was this kinship, that we were not alone in our belief in what we have seen and heard, that has brought together this search, and now a bit of traction. It has to be this personal connection with the wolf, that inspires this belief in the wolf’s existence. And together we want to bring out the truth.”
But Yagi acknowledges that the photographs he took 23 years ago are not the definitive proof he needs.
Now, the search is turning to modern technology to help capture further proof, including about 70 motion-sensitive infra-red video cameras set up across the Okuchichibu mountains. About a year ago, they recorded footage of three deer running past one of these camera. At first it seemed little to be excited about, but on closer inspection, Yagi noticed the audio accompanying the images appears to have picked up the sound of a howl.
“We brought the recorded howl to a specialist, and he compared it to that of the Eastern wolf that was kept at Asahikawa Zoo in Hokkaido,” says Yagi. “He declared with 99.5% assurance that the two were of the same animal, and I have received a certificate of authenticity for the wolf recording.”
“When I first heard the howl 50 years ago, I had told many people that I believed it was the wolf,” says Yagi. “But their logic was that ‘If it doesn’t exist, it can't be’. Whereas I believe in its opposite – if it is, then it exists. And it is this disbelief in other people, its this idea to disprove their logic, that has driven me this far. Sometimes it does seem like the road is still long.”
‘Lazarus’ species
Historically, the IUCN used the "50-year rule" to determine whether a species or subspecies is extinct, although it has now been replaced by a more nuanced species-specific approach, which requires evidence to be collected from targeted surveys across a species' range before extinction can be determined. The reality is that for some species, which are widely tracked and extensively researched, 50 years without observation is an unnecessarily long time.
For others there might have been so few sightings of the animals in the first place it would be an arbitrarily unfair rule. “No Western scientists have ever seen a wild saola – a beautiful long-horned Asian forest antelope, which is one of the world's rarest mammals,” says Samuel Turvey from the Zoological Society of London’s Institute of Zoology. “Information about its distribution in Vietnam and Laos is based largely on anecdotal reports by local hunters and villagers.” In the case of the saola, a handful of photos are the most that Western scientists have seen, so the 50-year rule is obsolete.
“In some cases, possibly extinct species might occur in extremely remote and impenetrable landscapes which are rarely visited by researchers, and so their status remains unknown rather than necessarily extinct,” says Turvey. “The complexity of proving extinction is made more difficult by the theoretical challenges that you can't prove a negative... just because you don't find a species, does this just mean that you haven't looked hard enough, or in the right place or at the right time of year, rather than necessarily meaning it no longer exists?”
Turvey warns that in the absence of definite accepted sightings in over a century, the continued survival of the Japanese wolf is unlikely, but not necessarily impossible.
“Making its survival less likely is the fact that wolves are social animals, which live in groups and make loud howling calls, which would be expected to make them more easily detectable compared to a solitary silent animal if they were still present in a landscape,” says Turvey.
“This brings us onto the sticky issue of data quantity versus data quality. Sightings have been reported which post-date the last ‘definite’ record, but they're unverified and probably unverifiable, so we can't be sure what was actually seen. This is the same confusing situation faced by scientists when trying to determine the possible survival of other ‘officially’ extinct species such as the thylacine and ivory-billed woodpecker.”
Some enthusiasts still believe that the thylacine, more commonly known as the Tasmanian tiger, still exists. One group of amateur sleuths have been using camera traps in the southern Tasmanian forests to find evidence of its existence, and in 2017 released a video purporting to show the animal, although the quality of the recording is anything but conclusive.
“Reports made by local people who live in the same landscapes as possibly extinct species definitely shouldn't be dismissed,” says Turvey. “Often such reports represent the only source of information about rare animals across large areas of remote habitat, which would require huge amounts of funding to survey using standard ecological approaches.”
Living things that appear to return from extinction are dubbed “Lazarus” species. Perhaps the most famous example of which is the coelacanth, a species of fish that has remained unchanged for millions of years and until 1938 was only known from fossil records before a living example was found off the South African coast. There are thought to only be a few hundred coelacanths left in the world. But their natural habitat, in deep waters may explain why they remained undetected for so long.
One sure way to put to bed the debate about whether the Japanese wolf really is still roaming wild in the mountains of Chichibu would be to obtain DNA evidence. This, far more than any number of photographs and recordings, could conclusively prove that the sightings are of wolves rather than domesticated dogs turned wild.
But there is another possibility. Wolves are able to successfully breed with domesticated dogs and produce fertile offspring, so there is a chance the population survived beyond the date of their presumed extinction by hybridising with local pets. A hybrid wolf-dog might explain the small, docile wolf-like animal Yagi saw 23 years ago. Although, in reality, the crossover between wolves and pet dogs would be so infrequent that a stable population would be unlikely to survive. Many large, domesticated dogs are also able to produce a wolf-like howl – so, stray pets which have ventured into the mountains might explain the noises locals heard.
Systematic collection and analysis of reported wolf sightings made by local people would be a very important next step to see what sort of patterns these reports might show in terms of distribution, says Turvey. Yagi agrees. If they find more evidence from their 70 remote cameras, they might better determine where to set up a harmless trap in order to capture one for DNA tests.
I'm inclined to believe that something is out there in the mountains – Alex Martin
“I believe I have been pure and passionate about finding the wolf, which is why I have been blessed with a sighting,” says Yagi. “I do believe I have been chosen by God to find and prove the existence of the Japanese wolf. Unfortunately there are nay-sayers, and I keep thinking ‘Get off the desk! Come and look for them in the mountain’.”
He is determined to keep patiently work towards his goal.
“Personally, I'm inclined to believe that something is out there in the mountains, whether it be the extinct animal itself or its descendants, and that sufficient time, money and technology will be able to reveal what it is,” says Martin, who will continue his own research having been inspired by Yagi. He has already had a new lead.
“Two weeks ago my mother informed me that she heard a series of unusual howls from the forest behind her Chichibu home, prompting me to set up infrared trail cameras in the area,” says Martin. “I'm waiting to see what I find.”
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