A comparison of wolf habitat between Japan and Poland with regard to human residential patterns

Abstract

One of the greatest public concerns about wolf recovery in Japan is whether or not there is sufficient space to provide suitable wolf habitat. To address this concern, we quantitatively compared the distribution patterns of human residences and facilities between Bieszczady National Park, a park in Poland inhabited by wolves, and various natural areas in Japan. We selected twenty-six sites (8 national parks (NP), 12 quasi-national parks (qNP), and 6 other wilderness areas) in Japan, based on geographic features and on the distribution of prey (sika deer Cervus nippon). We superimposed grid cells over maps of Bieszczady (1 : 75,000) and the selected locations in Japan (1 : 50,000) and counted the number of houses or building symbols in each cell. Our analyses indicated that, of the twenty-six sites, ten showed distribution patterns similar to, or simpler than, Bieszczady for three crucial criteria: residential rate (RR), Green's index (GI), and fractal dimension (D_f). Ten other sites had moderately higher RR values than Bieszczady, but had similar GI and D_f patterns, and six areas were deemed different from Bieszczady in terms of these three criteria. We suggest that, with respect to human residential patterns, wolf restoration in Japan can be recommended for the following ten areas: Shiretoko NP, Akan NP, Hidaka Mountains/Erimo qNP, Mount Daisetsu NP, Nikko NP, Chichibu/Tama NP, South Alps NP, Yoshino/Kumano NP, Koya/Ryujin qNP, and the Kyushu Central Mountains qNP.