February 2022_Lisa.pptx

DOGS IN HISTORY:
The real dogs of Eight Below
In 2006, Disney released “Eight Below”,
a film that tells the story of a pack of
abandoned sled dogs and their struggle
to survive the hostile Antarctic
landscape. What you may not know is
that this film is based on the Japanese
film “Antarctica” (1983), and that both
of these films are based on the true
story of the ill-fated 1958 Japanese
expedition to Antarctica.
The Japanese Antarctic Research
Expedition Program (JARE) had
established a research station in 1957
on East Ongul Island. The Syowa
Station, as it was called, was to host a
team of researchers for the first
over-winter expedition. There was a
team of 11 researchers, supported by a
team of 15 dogs. The dogs, all males,
were Sakhalin Huskies (in Japan the
breed is known as Karafuto-ken). The
dogs were there to pull sledges to and
from the base.
The idea was for the team to spend an
entire year at the base, with another
team to replace them the following
year. Unfortunately, the relief team’s
boat became stuck in ice too far from
the base to be of any assistance. The
researchers, and their dogs, were
stranded. The researchers were soon
evacuated by helicopter, but the 15
dogs had to be left behind.
The dogs were left tied up, with enough
food to last them for a few days.
Although the JARE was criticised for
abandoning the dogs, it seems that
evacuating the dogs would have been
an unacceptable risk to the human
team and their rescuers.
A team of researchers returned to the
research station in 1959, and found
seven of the dogs dead, still chained
up. Unexpectedly, the other dogs had
been able to break free and leave the
base. The team stumbled upon the
dogs Taro and Jiro not far from the
research station.
Taro and Jiro were brothers and the
youngest members of the husky pack
at three years of age. Somehow the
pair had survived the harsh Antarctic
environment for 11 months. They
hadn’t even resorted to cannibalism,
leaving the bodies of their pack mates
untouched and unspoiled. To this day
it is uncertain how the survived. It is
speculated that they learnt to hunt and
managed to catch penguins or seals,
eating just enough to survive for all
those months.
Taro and Jiro were rescued and taken
back to Japan where they were
greeted as heroes by the public. The
Karafuto-ken breed’s popularity
skyrocketed, and they remained
popular up until the 1990s.