Japan’s Monster Wolf robot is a $4,000 scarecrow with red LED eyes, and it actually works

Somewhere on a golf course in rural Hokkaido, a mechanical wolf with glowing red eyes is turning its head from side to side, howling at nothing in particular. It looks absurd. It is also, by most available evidence, working.

Monster Wolf is the product of Ohta Seiki, a small Hokkaido-based manufacturer that has been building animatronic scarecrows since 2016. The device is essentially a pipe frame draped in artificial fur, topped with a snarling wolf face fitted with red LED eyes and blue LED tail lights, connected to a speaker system that can broadcast more than 50 recorded sounds, from wolf howls to human voices to electronic noise, audible up to one kilometre away. An infrared sensor detects approaching animals and triggers the display. Prices start at around $4,000.

For most of its life, the product was treated as a gimmick. Nobody is laughing now. Ohta Seiki has received ...