Tokyo, Feb 8 (EFE).- A Japanese government panel proposed Thursday a series of measures to control the population of bears in the country, including incentives for hunting, given the record number of attacks on humans over the past year.
Experts from the environment ministry have advocated the inclusion of indigenous bears among the species designated for a control and capture program, in response to a social alarm caused by an unprecedented increase in encounters with bears that have resulted in injuries and even deaths.
Since April 2023, a total of 197 bear attacks have been recorded from 19 prefectures in Japan, resulting in six fatalities, according to official data, marking the highest figures ever recorded.
Sightings and attacks have shot up in residential areas since autumn, something experts blame on unusually high temperatures that reduced the availability of nuts and acorns – the main foods of bears -pushing these animals beyond their usual habitats.
The government panel’s proposal calls on municipalities to designate certain areas as bear habitats, clearly differentiated from human residential areas, and monitor the animal population to ensure that it remains at “healthy” levels.
In addition, it is recommended to add bears to the list of other animals for which hunting subsidies are offered, including local species of deer and wild boar.
The native bears in japan are the ‘Ursus thibetanus japonicus’, a subspecies of the Asian bear listed as vulnerable or likely to be endangered, and the Ussuri brown bear (“Ursus arctos lasiotus”), which live exclusively on the northern island of Hokkaido.
However, the proposal calls for the exclusion from the control and hunting program of bears native to the island region of Shikoku, considered particularly endangered.
Experts also underlined other factors that have contributed to increased bear activity in human residential areas, among them an increasing number of abandoned farms and the decline in hunters and forest workers, all resulting from the demographic decline in Japan, especially in rural areas. EFE
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