Waiting for Wolves in Japan: An Anthropological Study of People-Wildlife Relations

A Japanese conservationist group has launched a campaign for the reintroduction of the wolf in Japan, arguing that the wolf would be the savior of upland areas of Japan which are suffering from wildlife pestilence. This book examines the reintroduction proposal by drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in one of the candidate areas, and shows that conflicts with wildlife are inextricably bound up with social conflict among people, and that wildlife pestilence must therefore be understood in terms of its symbolic, as well as material dimensions.