In what year did the last Japanese wolf die?

The last Japanese wolf died in 1905. The final known animal was captured and killed on January 23, 1905, at Washikaguchi in what is now Higashiyoshino village, Nara Prefecture, on Japan’s main island of Honshu.

The Japanese wolf, or Honshu wolf, was an extinct subspecies of the gray wolf that once lived on Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu. Japan also had the Hokkaido wolf, a separate wolf population that disappeared later in the nineteenth century. The Japanese wolf was smaller than many mainland wolves and had a distinctive place in Japanese folklore and local religious traditions.

Disease helped accelerate its decline. Rabies appeared in Japan in the eighteenth century and spread into wolf populations, while canine distemper may also have affected them. During and after the Meiji Restoration, government-backed persecution, bounties, firearms and poison intensified pressure on the remaining animals.

The date 1905 refers to the last confirmed Japanese wolf, not necessarily the moment every individual vanished. Unverified sightings have continued, but no surviving population has been scientifically established. Several preserved specimens remain important for genetic and historical research.