Japan To Survey Bear Populations After Surge In Attacks On Humans

TOKYO, May 21 (Bernama-Kyodo) -- Japan’s Environment Ministry will begin surveying bear populations in the northeastern Tohoku region and vicinity in June by setting up about 800 cameras in mountains, it said earlier this week, following a surge in bear attacks on humans, Kyodo News reported. 

Camera traps and other methods will be used to help count black bears in the six prefectures of Aomori, Akita, Iwate, Yamagata, Miyagi, and Fukushima, collectively known as Tohoku, as well as adjacent Niigata, with estimates expected to be released by early next year.

The survey plan was revealed as Japan saw a record high number of 238 people injured or killed by bear attacks in the year through March.

It was reported at a recent meeting of ministers on measures against bears that more of the animals were spotted in Tohoku in April than in the same month last year.

The ministry said it will conduct surveys in other areas of Japan in fiscal 2027.

Regarding a survey in the northern island of Hokkaido, inhabited by brown bears, the ministry plans to mainly use a method of collecting body hair to count and estimate their numbers.

The ministry also plans to survey the tiny population of black bears on Shikoku in western Japan, but no research is planned for the adjacent island of Kyushu, where the animals are believed to have gone extinct.

According to government data, there are currently an estimated more than 19,000 black bears in the Tohoku region and 11,600 brown bears in Hokkaido.

-- BERNAMA-KYODO