Experts say Japan’s bear population — which includes at least 12,000 brown bears in Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan’s main islands — has been growing even as the rural population is aging and shrinking, leaving the bears with more room to roam and fewer people to scare them off.
A shortage of tree nuts and other staples of bears’ diet — a shortage driven partly by climate change — is also drawing the animals out of the forests and mountains where they live and into residential areas.
Most of the attacks have been by smaller Asian black bears and have occurred in Akita prefecture, now a front line of the crisis.
Two years ago Keiji Minatoya, a baker, was attacked by a bear in the garage behind his confectionery shop in the town of Kita-Akita.
The attack, which lasted about two minutes, left his face covered in blood and his forehead cracked open, exposing his skull. The bear had bitten him multiple times and clawed his back.
“Also, my earlobe was bitten off, and it still hurts,” said Minatoya, 68. “So even if I don’t want to remember the attack, I’m always reminded of it, because I feel the pain every day.”
Minatoya has not reopened his shop since the attack because he says his wife is too fearful. Instead, he delivers his baked goods to stores in the town to sell.
Since Minatoya’s experience, attacks have only increased. Hunters, riot police and even the military have been deployed, using drones that bark like dogs, traps laced with honey and even mechanical wolves to keep the bears at bay.
Both brown and black bears were added to a government list of “controlled animals” last year, and recent emergency rule changes allow them to be shot by police officers, though not military personnel.
As a safety precaution, some residents wear bear bells or carry alarms and whistles when they go out. Others opt to stay indoors.
