Japan steps up response as deadly bear attacks hit record

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

Faced with a serious shortage of experienced hunters, the government has decided to encourage retired police officers and ex-military personnel to obtain hunting licenses, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported.

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

According to the Ministry of Environment, 13 people have been killed by bears nationwide since April, the highest number on record. Dozens more were injured.

Encounters between bears and humans have been increasing 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 the lack of food in mountain forests. Beech trees, an essential food source, have become rare, probably also because of climate change.

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

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

“People’s lives and livelihoods are in danger,” Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said. The government plans to provide additional funding to hunters, whose numbers are declining and whose average age continues to increase.

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

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