Japan steps up response as deadly bear attacks hit record

Japan is ramping up its response to a record number of deadly bear attacks, local media reported on Saturday.

Facing an acute shortage of experienced hunters, the government has decided to encourage retired police officers and former soldiers to obtain hunting licences, the newspaper Asahi Shimbun reported.

The move comes after Japan eased its strict firearms laws to allow police officers to use rifles on bears.

According to the Environment Ministry, 13 people have been killed by bears nationwide since April – the highest number ever recorded. Dozens more have been injured.

Encounters between bears and humans have been rising for years. Experts point to the abandonment of farmland and the depopulation of rural areas as Japan’s population shrinks and ages.

Another reason hungry bears are increasingly venturing into residential areas, they say, is a lack of food in mountain forests. Beech nuts, a key food source, have become scarce, likely also due to climate change.

Most attacks have been reported in the northern prefectures of Iwate and Akita. The situation has become so serious that Akita Governor Kenta Suzuki recently visited the Defence Ministry in Tokyo to request military support.

Troops are now helping local authorities set up live traps and remove and dispose of bears that have been killed. The soldiers themselves do not shoot the animals.

“People’s lives and livelihoods are at risk,” Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said. The government plans to provide additional funding for hunters, whose numbers are declining and whose average age continues to rise.

Large populations of Asiatic black bears, or moon bears, live in the forested mountains of Honshu, Japan’s main island. Officials in Akita estimate several thousand animals in that prefecture alone.

Thousands of brown bears also inhabit the northernmost island of Hokkaido.