Robots Are Even Coming for the Wolves!

An example of Mother Nature and her delicate, and the ‘bots that bail us out…

For the last eight months, farms near Kisarazu City in Japan have been home to a horrifying robot wolf. But don’t worry, it wasn’t created to terrorize local residents (although, from the looks of the thing, it probably did). Its official name is “Super Monster Wolf,” and engineers designed it to stop animals from eating farmers’ crops.

It’s about a foot and a half tall and two feet long, which is pretty close to the size of a real wolf.

In truth, the story of the robowolf is more than a little.  As Motherboard
reports, wolves went extinct in Japan in the early 1800s. The cause? A state-sponsored eradication campaign. Now, parts of Japan are overrun with deer and wild boar. They love to feast on farmers’ rice and chestnut crops. Obviously, farmers do not love this. Fast forward 200 years, and humans create a robotic wolf to replace the species they killed off.  – WEF

In video footage taken by Kyota Tsutsumi of Japanese news outlet The Asahi Shimbun, the mecawolf swings its matted head around to bare its teeth at onlookers. A long, sad howl echoes over a green field, for dramatic impact. It looks every inch like the G’mork from The NeverEnding Story.

Apparently, the effect is working: Kisarazu city government officials told The Japan News that there have been no signs of wild animals or birds nearby since Super Monster Wolf was installed on July 11.