The okuri-okami legend above is an example of the way the wolf protects the vulnerable - in this case the lone traveler in the night-time mountains. I shall examine wolfsightings on the Kii Peninsula in terms of the much more widespread phenomenon whereby particular animal species take on a larger, emblematic status within human society. The refusal to accept the extinction of the wolf among certain rural Japanese offers insight into the local cultural perception of the upland natural environment and its recent history. I shall argue that the presence or absence of wolves in the mountains - or rather the uncertainty surrounding their possible existence there - says in itself something about 1) the relationship of Japanese mountain villagers with the forests that surround them, and 2) the changes to the upland environment that have occurred over the course of this century. My concern is rather the social anthropological one of exploring the way in which the upland environment is imagined by those who live in it. Accordingly, no zoological, ethological, or ecological evidence that could either confirm or deny the extinction orthodoxy is offered here. My own interest in these claims concerns not so much their veracity as their potential for telling us something about the local understandings of the upland forest environment typical of the peninsula.
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