By Tim Kelly and Tom Bateman
KAZUNO, Japan (Reuters) -Japan’s military deployed troops to the country’s mountainous north on Wednesday to help trap bears after an urgent request from local authorities struggling to cope with a wave of attacks.
The operation began in the town of Kazuno, where residents for weeks have been told to avoid the thick forests that surround it, stay home after dark and carry bells to deter bears that might forage near their homes for food.
There have been more than 100 bear attacks with a record 12 people killed across Japan in the year since April, according to the environment ministry. Two-thirds of those deaths were in Akita prefecture, where Kazuno is located, and nearby Iwate.
“As bears continue to enter populated areas in many regions and injuries from bear attacks increase daily, we absolutely cannot afford to put off bear countermeasures,” Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Kei Sato told a press conference in Tokyo on Wednesday.
Authorities in Akita say bear sightings have jumped six-fold this year to more than 8,000, prompting the prefecture’s governor to request help from Japan’s Self-Defense Forces last week.
An army truck, several jeeps, and more than a dozen soldiers, some carrying body armour, gathered on Wednesday morning in Kazuno, a town of around 30,000 people known for its hot springs, dramatic landscapes and variety of sweet apples.
The troops will help transport, set and inspect the box traps used to capture the bears but the culling will be left to trained hunters with weapons more suited to that purpose.
ATTACKS IN SUPERMARKET, HOT SPRING RESORT
Rising bear numbers, climate change-driven shifts in natural food sources and depopulation of rural areas are increasingly bringing people into contact with bears in Japan. An ageing band of hunters that authorities once relied on are overwhelmed.
In recent months, bears have attacked customers inside a supermarket, jumped a tourist waiting at a bus stop near a UNESCO World Heritage site and mutilated a worker cleaning out a bath at a hot spring resort.
Japanese black bears, common across most of the country, can weigh up to 130 kg (287 pounds). Brown bears on its northern island of Hokkaido can weigh as much as 400 kg.
Japan previously deployed the military to assist in wildlife control around a decade ago when they provided aerial surveillance for hunts of wild deer. Elsewhere, the British army provided logistical support in the mass culling of animals infected with foot-and-mouth disease in 2001.
(Reporting by Tim Kelly and Tom Bateman in Kazuno, Japan; Additional reporting by John Geddie in Tokyo; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
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