Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a bill that would allow hunters to shoot bears in populated areas at their own discretion after human encounters with the wild animals hit record levels.
Across the nation, 219 people were attacked by bears in the 12 months to April last year, with six human fatalities — the highest since statistics began nearly two decades ago.
Climate change affecting bear food sources and hibernation times, along with depopulation caused by an aging society, are causing the animals to venture into towns more frequently.
Photo: Reuters
The revised wildlife protection and management law would allow “emergency shootings” following complaints that hunters have been hampered by red tape.
The Japanese Ministry of the Environment hopes to present the bill to parliament in the coming months and get it enacted before autumn, when bear sightings typically surge, said a ministry official, who declined to be named.
Currently, shooting animals such as bears or wild boar in residential areas is forbidden.
Even when bears hole themselves up in populated areas, hunters are not allowed to shoot without being given the green light by police.
Even then, police “can only issue such a command in an extremely dire situation, such as when a person is seconds away from being attacked,” the ministry official said.
Under current rules, “you would have to wait until someone is actually in danger to get police approval,” he said.
A bear in December last year rampaged through a supermarket in northern Japan for two days before being lured out with food coated in honey.
It wounded a 47-year-old man before shoppers were evacuated and the bear laid waste to the meat department.
More than 9,000 bears were killed in Japan in the 12 months to April last year.
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