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Japan has been grappling with a concerning rise in bear attacks that have resulted in a record-high annual death toll while injuring more than 100 people. Those numbers will likely only continue to rise as the animals prepare to enter hibernation, and the nation’s army is being dispatched in an attempt to address the problem.
There are sixty countries on the planet where bears can be found in the wild, with the bulk of them located in the Northern Hemisphere. That includes Japan, which is home to upwards of 60,000 thanks to the estimated 44,000 black bears on the islands of Honshu and Shikoku and the approximately 12,000 of the brown variety that roam Hokkaido.
That second island was the site of an infamous killing spree that transpired in 1915 when a brown bear dubbed “Kesagake” claimed the lives of seven people in a remote village over the span of six days before it was hunted down and eaten by a hunting party that ate it as an act of revenge.
It’s been more than a century since that string of attacks transpired, and while the country has not seen a similar incident unfold, it has set a dubious new record since the fiscal year kicked off in April due to a spate of attacks that have led to the deaths of 11 people, with more than 100 others being injured to various degrees.
There is unfortunately no easy solution to address that problem, but one region is hoping the military might be able to have an impact.
Members of the Japanese army will be deployed to the Akita Prefecture to assist with efforts to combat bear attacks
Japan’s bear population has been steadily rising since the 1990s, and there has also been an increase in attacks in recent years due to a couple of major factors.
Climate change has impacted natural food sources and led to the animals getting increasingly desperate for a meal, and the country is also dealing with a population decline that has seemingly made them more willing to wander into thinning villages and more fearless when they come face-to-face with people.
I first learned about the recent rise in bear attacks when one wandered into a grocery store in the city of Numata at the start of October (injuring two people in the process), which transpired around the same time an ultramarathon runner suffered some grisly injuries while defending himself from a bear that attacked him while he was training.
According to The New York Times, officials in the Akita Prefecture, a mountainous region on the island of Hokkaido, have now grown concerned to the point where they have asked the Ministry of Defense to send army officers to the area to address the bears that get increasingly aggressive as they prepare for the hibernation period that usually begins near the end of November.
That might lead you to believe soldiers will be roaming the region with guns looking for bears to cull, but that won’t be the case. They’ll primarily be tasked with setting up traps to capture the bears, and hunters in the area will be called upon to exterminate the animals if they end up being caged (the outlet notes “the law allows the military to transport dead animals, but it does not appear to permit extermination”).