As bear attacks rise in Japan, ageing hunters take the front line

Sunagawa: A gunshot rang out on a recent morning in a meadow in northern Japan. The brown bear slumped in the cage, watched by a handful of city officials and hunters.

The bear had been roaming around a nearby house and eating its way through adjacent cornfields, so officials and hunters in Sunagawa city had set a trap with a deer carcass to lure the voracious creature.

"For me, it's always a bit deflating when a bear gets caught," Haruo Ikegami, 75, who heads the local hunters' association, told Reuters hours beforehand.

Japan is grappling with a growing bear problem. A dwindling band of aging hunters is on the front line.

A record 219 people were victims of bear attacks, six of them fatal, in the 12 months through March 2024, while more than 9,000 black and brown bears were trapped and culled over that period, according to Japan's environment ministry.

Both species' habitats have been expanding; the ministry estimates that the number of brown bears in Hokkaido, Japan's northern island, more than doubled to about 11,700 in the three decades through 2020. (It doesn't keep estimates on black bears, most of which live on the main island of Honshu, though a widely cited 2023 analysis by Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper estimated their numbers at roughly 44,000, a threefold increase since 2012.)

Restrictions on hunting practices and greater emphasis on conservation contributed to a surge in bear sightings over recent decades, according to Japan's Forest Research and Management Organisation.

With Japan's rural areas experiencing rapid demographic decline, bears are venturing closer to towns and villages and into abandoned farmland, an environment ministry expert panel said in February.

But bear expertise among local governments is spotty, and Japan's reliance on recreational hunters to protect settlements looks unsustainable as its population ages, according to Reuters interviews with almost two dozen people, including experts, hunters, officials and residents.

Many called for changes to the way Japan manages human-bear conflict to address safety concerns while ensuring a future for the bears.

In Hokkaido cities and towns like Sunagawa, Naie, Iwamizawa and Takikawa, which Reuters visited in October, some residents wonder what will happen when hunters can no longer do the job.

Toru Yoshino, a 66-year-old chicken farmer in Sunagawa, said he was "terrified" by a bear that would wander into his farm a few years ago. As local authorities weighed how to respond, they ultimately relied on the hunters' association, the Sunagawa Ryoyukai, to neutralise the threat, he said.

Sunagawa's city government told Reuters that efforts to capture the bear were complicated by its proximity to homes and deliberations about what to do once the animal was trapped.

Although some hunters stalk bears as a hobby, Ikegami reckons not many are thrilled about culling trapped bears for local governments.

"I don't want people to think of hunting as something fashionable. What we do is difficult. It's a big burden to take a life," he said.

The burden is both mental and monetary. The hunter that shot the bear in Sunagawa would get about 8,000 yen (about $50), perhaps enough to cover fuel and expenses but little else, Ikegami said.

Hunters also risk clashing with authorities. Ikegami's guns were seized by Hokkaido authorities in 2019 after they deemed his attempt to shoot a bear near a house was ill-judged. He is battling in court to have the weapons returned. The Hokkaido safety officials involved in the matter declined to address Reuters questions about the case.

In response to increased bear attacks, Japanese government officials this year proposed relaxing rules around gun use to make it easier for hunters to shoot bears in urban areas.

Local governments of Sunagawa, Takikawa and Iwamizawa told Reuters that regional and national authorities could go further to address the problem. This could include promoting the recruitment of hunters and improving their conditions, among other ideas.

Japan's environment ministry said it subsidises efforts to train local officials and conduct bear drills in towns, but added that regional differences in human-bear conflicts called for tailor-made approaches. The Hokkaido government's wildlife bureau said it ran various initiatives to incentivise and recruit hunters, including promotional events and training people in how to handle brown bears.

Environmental group WWF said in an email that to preserve Japan's bear population, authorities should take actions including developing human-wildlife buffer zones and formulating a national protection and management plan. It declined to comment specifically on the culling of bears in Japan.

While its numbers have been growing in Japan, the Asiatic black bear is listed as vulnerable on the IUCN's red list of threatened species globally. The brown bear is listed as least concern.

Growing Old

Bear hunting was lucrative until the 1980s, and hide and bile were traded for high prices. But with growing environmental awareness and changes to regulations and consumer tastes, the practice has fallen out of favour.

Japan issued some 218,500 hunting licences in the 2020 fiscal year, less than half of the 517,800 it issued in 1975, according to official data. While about 98% of those issued in 1975 were for shooting, that figure dropped to 42% in 2020, the most recent data. The remaining licences are for trapping. About 60% of licence holders were aged over 60, according to 2020 data.

Hunting is expensive, unappealing, and exhausting, the hunters say.

Traps need to be checked daily while bears lurk nearby. Rifle owners must abide by Japan's strict firearms laws and invest in ammunition and gun storage.

Those difficulties came to a head earlier this year in Naie, where hunter Tatsuhito Yamagishi, 72, accused the local government of taking hunters for granted, without investing in a longer-term solution.

"Once we grow old and have no choice but to quit, this reliance on the hunters' association is not going to work," Yamagishi said.

Naie's local government declined to comment on the dispute with Yamagishi but said officials were taking steps to address the bear problem, including working with licensed hunters from outside the area.

Some experts, including Koji Yamazaki, a professor at Tokyo University of Agriculture who studies bears, said depopulation and a decline in the amount of managed farmland in recent decades may have led bears to become bolder about approaching towns. Clearer demarcation between habitats would help humans and bears coexist, he said.

Yoshikazu Sato, professor of agriculture at Rakuno Gakuen University, said bears appeared to be raising cubs closer to human settlements, causing young bears not to fear people as much as before. Climate change-driven shifts in the ripening and flowering of fruits, nuts and leaves may drive bears to raid crops when their usual food sources are low, he added.

"What we need is a daily, consistent effort to make sure that bears don't enter human areas," Sato said.

Monster Wolf

Katsuo Harada, an 84-year-old hunter, said that ultimately, Japan should create a system where hunters are paid enough to support a family. "Unless they're paid properly, we can't nurture the next generation of hunters," he said.

Harada carries the scars of a bear attack more than 20 years ago, when the animal sank its teeth into his skull.

"It sounded like it was munching on some raw radish," he said.

He fought off the bear, and his hunting buddies called for help. The subsequent surgery took 16 hours, he said.

Harada is now part of a non-profit organisation, Farming Support Hokkaido, that helps communities keep problematic wildlife at bay.

"If I don't keep doing my job, there may be casualties," Harada said.

Japan's environment ministry in September warned about the possibility of a surge in bear attacks towards year-end, when the animals typically scavenge for food to store up fat for hibernation. In 2023, bear sightings and attacks peaked in October, according to official data. With Japan's population aging and shrinking, some companies are turning to technology to manage bears.

Propped on four rods, the "Monster Wolf" robot sold by Sapporo-based Wolf Kamuy emits growls, barks and threats from a loudspeaker, triggered by a sensor.

Priced at about 400,000 yen (roughly $2,550) and powered by solar energy, the gleaming-eyed beast has demonstrated some success in warding off bears, though its sensor can be triggered by other animals, said company vice-president Yuji Ohta.

But Yamagishi, the hunter in Naie, said it takes years of analysing pawprints and dung and learning to read bears' signs to understand how to trap them, adding that human expertise will remain integral to managing the problem.

Yamagishi thinks it would take three to five years to train a new generation of hunters.

"By then, we'll all be retired," he said.