Japanese boar

The Japanese boar (Sus scrofa leucomystax), also known as the white-moustached pig,[2] nihon-inoshishi (ニホンイノシシ),[3] or yama kujira (山鯨, lit. "mountain whale"),[3] is a subspecies of wild boar native to all of Japan, apart for Hokkaido and the Ryukyu Islands.

Japanese boar
S. s. leucomystax, Tama zoo
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Artiodactyla
Family: Suidae
Genus: Sus
Species:
S. scrofa
Subspecies:
S. s. leucomystax
Trinomial name
Sus scrofa leucomystax
Temminck, 1842
Synonyms[1]
Species synonymy
  • japonica (Nehring, 1885)
  • nipponicus (Heude, 1899)

Taxonomy

It is a small, almost maneless, yellowish-brown subspecies[4] with distinctive white whiskers extending from the corners of the mouth to the cheeks.[2]

Predators

In many areas of Japan, humans are the only predator for wild boars. The Japanese black bear is usually herbivorous, but they can eat livestock. The omnivorous Ussuri brown bear adapted to hunt wild boars. Its former natural predator, the Japanese wolf, is believed to have gone extinct.[5] The Japan Wolf Association has been lobbying to reintroduce wolves into the country to restore the ecological balance which would curb the ballooning populations of deer and boars.[5] However, there is strong public opposition to this plan.[5]

Presence following the Fukushima nuclear disaster

After the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, wild boars descended from the mountains to towns and cities within the exclusion zone that had been temporarily evacuated.[6] A DNA analysis showed they thrived there and bred with escaped domestic pigs to form boar-pig hybrids.[6] The boars were more likely to survive in the wild compared to the domestic pigs due to hybrid vigor.[6] Over time, genes inherited from the domestic pigs will gradually disappear as hybrid pigs breed with the more numerous purebred wild boar.[6]

Culture
Japanese boar at Tama Zoo
Emperor Yūryaku hunts a wild boar

It features prominently in Japanese culture, where it is widely seen as a fearsome and reckless animal, to the point that several words and expressions in Japanese referring to recklessness include references to boars. The boar is the last animal of the oriental zodiac, with people born during the year of the Pig being said to embody the boar-like traits of determination and impetuosity.

Boars are also seen as symbols of fertility and prosperity. The animal's link to prosperity was illustrated by its inclusion on the ¥10 note during the Meiji period, and it was once believed that a man could become wealthy by keeping a clump of boar hair in his wallet.[7]

It is a popular subject among netsuke sculptors, and is mentioned in Kojiki (711-712), the oldest extant Japanese chronicle. The boar also features in Japanese poetry, having first appeared in the works of Yamabe no Akahito.[3] Its importance in the Japanese diet was such that it was exempt from Emperor Tenmu's ban on meat-eating in 675.[8]

References
  1. Wozencraft, W. C. (2005). "Order Carnivora". In Wilson, D. E.; Reeder, D. M. (eds.). Mammal Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3rd ed.). Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 532–628. ISBN 978-0-8018-8221-0. OCLC 62265494.
  2. von Siebold, P. F. (1842), Fauna japonica sive Descriptio animalium qu, in itinere per japoniam suspecto annis 1823-1830, Volume 1, Müller, pp. 57-58
  3. Garis, Frederic de & Sakai, Atsuharu (2013), We Japanese, Routledge, p. 106, ISBN 1136183671
  4. Groves, C. (2008). Current views on the taxonomy and zoogeography of the genus Sus. pp. 15–29 in Albarella, U., Dobney, K, Ervynck, A. & Rowley-Conwy, P. Eds. (2008). Pigs and Humans: 10,000 Years of Interaction. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-920704-6
  5. "Alex K.T. Martin – The Howl of Japan's Lost Wolves". Asia Art Tours. September 19, 2021. Archived from the original on July 23, 2022.
  6. "Fukushima disaster: Tracking the wild boar 'takeover'". BBC. June 30, 2021. Archived from the original on July 15, 2022.
  7. Knight, J. (2003), Waiting for Wolves in Japan: An Anthropological Study of People-wildlife Relations, Oxford University Press, pp. 49-73, ISBN 0199255180
  8. Ishige, Naomichi (2014-06-17). History Of Japanese Food. Routledge. pp. 53–54. ISBN 978-1-136-60255-9.
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