Record number of fatal attacks Japan goes on a bear hunt
According to Japan's Environment Ministry, 13 people have been killed by bears across the country since April. (archive picture)
Image: dpa
More and more people are being attacked by bears in Japan. (archive picture)
Image: dpa
Reports of bear attacks are now also scaring off tourists. (archive picture)
Image: dpa
According to Japan's Environment Ministry, 13 people have been killed by bears across the country since April. (archive picture)
Image: dpa
More and more people are being attacked by bears in Japan. (archive picture)
Image: dpa
Reports of bear attacks are now also scaring off tourists. (archive picture)
Image: dpa
More and more people are being attacked by bears in Japan. The number of deaths is also rising. At the same time, the state lacks hunters. Now the government is taking drastic measures.
15.11.2025, 07:18
15.11.2025, 07:22
SDA
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- Japan is responding to a record number of fatal bear attacks by relaxing gun laws and deploying retired police officers and soldiers as hunters.
- The main reasons for the increase in attacks are a lack of food in the forests and the depopulation of rural regions.
- The government is also providing military and technological support to affected prefectures in order to protect the population and safeguard tourism despite the growing bear threat.
Japan is calling to arms in the face of a record number of deadly bear attacks. Due to an acute shortage of experienced hunters, the central government decided to encourage retired police officers and former soldiers to obtain a hunting license, as reported by the Asahi Shimbun newspaper.
In addition, the strict gun regulations were relaxed: police officers are now allowed to shoot bears with rifles. According to the Ministry of the Environment, 13 people have been killed by bears across the country since April - a record number. Dozens more people have been injured.
Most bear attacks are reported from the northern prefectures of Iwate and Akita. The situation is now so serious that the governor of Akita, Kenta Suzuki, recently visited the Ministry of Defense in Tokyo and called for the deployment of soldiers. "The strain on the local emergency services is reaching its limit," said Suzuki.
The military is now helping the local authorities to set up live traps and to remove and dispose of killed bears. However, the soldiers do not shoot bears themselves.
Bears do not find enough food in forests
"People's lives and livelihoods are under threat," said Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi. That is why the government now wants to provide money for hunters. Their numbers have decreased significantly - and the remaining ones are getting older and older.
There are several reasons why dangerous encounters between bears and humans have been increasing for years - including the increasing abandonment of farmland and the depopulation of rural areas as a result of ageing and the general decline in population.
Another reason is that the animals do not find enough food in the mountain forests. There is a shortage of beechnuts, which some experts attribute to climate change. Others, such as hunter Kazuo Sugimoto, point out that only sugi (Japanese cedar) and hinoki (Japanese false cypress) are left in the mountains. "Wild animals cannot survive in such a forest," he told the Kanagawa Shimbun newspaper.
Large-scale reforestation programs were carried out in Japan after the Second World War. In many places, fast-growing, commercially viable conifers such as sugi and hinoki were planted to meet the enormous demand for wood. However, with the later triumph of cheap imported timber - especially since the 1960s and 1970s - domestic forestry collapsed. Many plantations were no longer managed, barely thinned or cut down - and became overgrown.
Hunters want a return to natural forests
The result is dense, artificial coniferous forests that allow hardly any light to reach the forest floor. There is hardly any undergrowth. There is little food for wild animals such as bears, deer and wild boar. This is why hungry bears are now increasingly migrating to lower-lying areas and even to villages and towns, explained Sugimoto.
Years ago, the 87-year-old started an initiative in Tokyo's neighboring prefecture of Kanagawa to plant beech and walnut seedlings in the mountains. "It's better to improve the forests than to kill bears," says Sugimoto. He hopes that other regions will now follow suit.
Bear plague also affects tourism industry
According to local media, the reports of bear attacks are now also scaring off some tourists - and this is happening during the autumn leaf-peeping season, which is a peak season for the tourism industry. In Iwate, some operators of onsen, Japan's famous natural hot springs, have temporarily closed their outdoor pools as a precaution. Gifu Prefecture even announced the use of drones that play the sound of barking dogs and fireworks over loudspeakers to scare bears away from residential areas.
The forested mountains on the main Japanese island of Honshu are home to many Asiatic black bears, known as ruffed bears. The authorities estimate that there are several thousand of these predators in Akita Prefecture alone. There are also thousands of brown bears on the northernmost main island of Hokkaido.
