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Japan has deployed troops to the northern prefecture of Akita to help contain a surge in the number of bear attacks that have terrorised people in the mountainous region.
Unexpected encounters with bears are being reported almost daily in the lead up to hibernation season as the animals forage for food. The bears have been roaming near schools, train stations, supermarkets and even at a hot springs resort.
Some of the encounters have resulted in injuries and even a number of deaths. The growing bear population’s encroachment into residential areas is happening in a region with a rapidly aging and declining human population.
Since April, more than 100 people have been injured and at least 12 killed in bear attacks across Japan, according to the environment ministry.
The defence ministry and Akita prefecture signed an agreement on Wednesday to deploy soldiers to address the problem. Soldiers will set box-traps with food, transport local hunters and help dispose of dead animals. Officials say the soldiers will not use firearms to cull the bears.
Fumitoshi Sato, the deputy chief cabinet secretary, said: “Every day, bears intrude into residential areas in the region and their impact is expanding. Responses to the bear problem are an urgent matter.”
The operation began in a forested mountain area in Kazuno city in northern Akita, where bear sightings and injuries have been reported. A team of white-helmeted soldiers wearing bulletproof vests and carrying bear spray and net launchers set up a trap near an orchard.
Takahiro Ikeda, an orchard operator in the neighbourhood, said bears had already eaten more than 200 of his apples that were ready for harvest. “My heart is broken,” he told NHK television.
Kenta Suzuki, the governor of Akita, said local authorities were getting “desperate” due to a lack of resources amid daily reports of bear sightings and attacks.
Shinjiro Koizumi, the defence minister, said the aim of the bear mission was to help secure people’s daily lives, but that service members’ primary mission was national defence and unlimited support for the mission could not be provided. The Japanese self-defence forces are already understaffed.
So far, the ministry has not received requests from other prefectures for troop assistance over the bear issue, 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 most of the bear attacks have occurred in residential areas.
An elderly woman who went mushroom-hunting in the forest was found dead in an apparent bear attack over the weekend in the city of Yuzawa. Another elderly woman in Akita city who encountered a bear while working on a farm was killed in late October. A newspaper delivery man was attacked and injured by a bear in Akita city on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, a woman in Akita city spotted two bears on a persimmon tree in her garden. From indoors, she filmed the bears as they ate the fruits and walked around the garden for about 30 minutes. The woman, in her 70s, told a local TV network that she was frightened because the bears appeared at one point to want to enter the room she was in, and she moved away from the window.
Experts say Japan’s aging and declining population in rural areas is among the reasons for the growing bear problem. They say the bears are not endangered and need culling to keep the population under control.
