It was early June and a bear was running rampant in the Tochigi Prefectural capital, throwing the city of 500,000 into a state of paralysis. Schools were closed, residents were frantically checking their gardens for any signs of the animal and specialists from the local zoo were deployed to bring the bear under control. The three-day chase ended when a zookeeper shot the bear with a tranquilizer gun near a private residence.
The dramatic episode, which was widely shown on TV and the internet, was the latest in a growing number of conflicts between humans and bears in Japan. Following last fiscal year’s record-breaking number of bear-related incidents — nationwide, 238 people were attacked and 13 were killed — Japan is bracing for another pre-hibernation surge in sightings, encounters and attacks this fall. So far, experts say the relatively rich acorn harvests this year would keep many bears sufficiently fed, likely preventing the recurrence of horrors played out across the Tohoku and Kanto regions last autumn.
But in the medium to long term, Japan’s challenges will continue, with incidents like the one in Utsunomiya being only a harbinger of what could happen in other communities. Last November, the central government compiled an emergency bear attack prevention plan aimed at actively reducing the number of bears in the country and increasing staff and resources for bear management and culling, including through the wider adoption of “government hunters.” In March, the government followed up with a roadmap outlining steps to take by 2030, such as tripling the number of municipal officials in charge of capturing bears to 2,500 and doubling the number of bear traps to 10,000 across the nation. The government also set region-specific goals for the number of bears to cull, based on the assessment that the number of Asian black bears — long the target of conservation efforts and still classified as a vulnerable species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature — had become overpopulated in the Tohoku, Kanto and Chubu regions.
It aims to reduce the bear population in Tohoku, Kanto and Chubu to 62%, 67% and 63% of the current level, respectively, by fiscal 2030. In Hokkaido, home to an estimated 11,600 brown bears, the government aims to reduce the population of that species to 8,200 in fiscal 2030. The government is planning a less drastic reduction in the number of bears in the Kinki and Chugoku regions, culling just enough — about 900 bears — to keep the current population level.
Under a new emergency culling system instituted last year, hunters can now shoot bears in residential areas with permission from local authorities. Guns have been fired 36 times under the system as of Oct. 12. But culling alone won’t solve longstanding problems.
Mayumi Yokoyama, professor of wildlife management at the University of Hyogo and a member of an expert panel on bear management measures under the Environment Ministry, advocates for a long-term, evidence-based approach. She says that while the series of new measures taken by the government is welcome, it will take years to nurture specialists and accumulate data. Yokoyama has long called for wildlife management that takes into account the nation’s aging population and decline, saying not just bears but deer, boars and monkeys have grown rapidly and expanded their habitats in abandoned or less-monitored farm fields, intensifying crop damage.
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