Japan deploys troops in bid to curb rise in deadly bear attacks

Tokyo – Japan’s Defense Ministry sent troops to the northern prefecture of Akita on Wednesday to help contain a wave of bear attacks that have horrified the inhabitants of the mountainous region.

Bears have appeared near schools, train stations, supermarkets and even a hot spring resort, and attacks by the animals are reported almost daily throughout Japan, mainly in the north.

Since April, more than 100 people have been injured and at least 12 have died in bear attacks across Japan, according to Environment Ministry statistics as of late October. That’s him highest number of people killed by animals in the country in a fiscal year since 2006, when the ministry began compiling the statistics.

“Every day, bears invade residential areas in the region and their impact is expanding,” Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Fumitoshi Sato told reporters. “Answers to the bear problem are an urgent matter.”

The Defense Ministry and Akita Prefecture signed an agreement on sending troops on Wednesday afternoon, allowing soldiers to set trap boxes with food inside, transport local hunters and assist in the disposal of dead bears. Soldiers will not use firearms to cull bears, officials said.

Akita Governor Kenta Suzuki said local authorities were becoming “desperate” due to a lack of manpower amid daily reports of bear attacks.

Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said Tuesday that the bear’s mission is intended to help protect people’s daily lives, but that the primary mission of Self-Defense Forces service members is national defense and they cannot provide unlimited support to the bear’s response. The Japanese SDF is already understaffed.

So far the ministry has not received any other requests for troop assistance regarding the bear problem, he said.

In Akita prefecture, which has a population of about 880,000, bears have attacked more than 50 people since May, killing at least four, according to the local government. Experts say 70% of bear attacks have occurred in residential areas.

An elderly woman who went hunting for mushrooms in the forest was found dead in an apparent bear attack over the weekend in the prefectural city of Yuzawa. Another elderly woman from the city of Akita encountered a bear while working on a farm and was killed in late October. And a newspaper deliveryman was attacked by a bear and injured in the city of Akita on Tuesday.

Experts say Japan’s aging and declining population in rural areas are among the reasons for the growing bear problem in recent years.

Abandoned neighborhoods and farmland with persimmon or chestnut trees often attract bears to residential areas. Once bears find food and acquire the taste, they keep coming back, experts say.

Local hunters are also aging and are not used to bear hunting. Experts say police and other authorities should be trained as “government hunters” to help cull the animals.

The government created a task force last week to create an official bear response by mid-November. Authorities are considering surveys of the bear population, the use of communication devices to issue bear warnings and revisions to hunting rules. They also say that experts in hunting and ecology should be trained.

The lack of preventive measures in the depopulated and aging northern regions has also caused an increase in populations of brown bears and Asiatic black bears, the ministry said.