Creationism, Intelligent Design, or the Surreptitious Hand of Evolution? (October 6, 2004)

    The journal Science reports in its September 24^th issue that the East Japan Railway Company has found a novel way of discouraging pesky critters from meandering onto its tracks who have been responsible for numerous accidents. Deer and raccoon dogs have been among the miscreants.

Railway officials got wind of reports that lion faeces were effective in scaring deer out of forests they had been decimating by chewing on tree bark. They got a supply of lion dung from Morioka Zoological Park, made a water emulsion and periodically spray along the most hazardous stretches of track. Works a treat. But it also stinks. East Japan Railway is now working on analysing the faeces to find the "active" substance(s) in hope that it/they will be less noticeable to the human nose. Whether or not EJRC will call in the latest Nobel Laureates in Physiology or Medicine hasn't been revealed.

But there is a very interesting detail -- there have never been any lions in the mountains of Japan's Iwate Prefecture. How/why has the fear of the big feline infested the local fauna?