08-07-2025
How to stop a bear in big city: Japan issues shoot-to-kill guide
For years, they have become ever bolder and more aggressive, entering towns and cities, walking along busy streets and trespassing into homes, even military barracks.
Now Japan has authorised drastic measures for dealing with its plague of bears: turning the guns on them.
The environment ministry has sent to local governments guidelines on a new law allowing them to deploy armed hunters against invading bears in urban areas.
After centuries of shy coexistence with humans, occasionally glimpsed in the mountains by hikers and hunters, the creatures have run amok in recent years, killing and injuring more people than ever before.
In the past, most bear encounters took place in the wild, often involving attacks on people gathering mushrooms and mountain plants. Every year, however, there are more reports of bears entering the human domain.
