Photo/Illutration Tonko, a female brown bear, is on exhibition in the indoor area of the Ezo Brown Bear Museum facility at the Asahiyama Zoo in Asahikawa, Hokkaido, on April 25. (Daijiro Honda)

ASAHIKAWA, Hokkaido--A new exhibition area opened to the public on April 29 at the Asahiyama Zoo with the aim of getting visitors to think about the increasingly strained relationship between humans and brown bears.

Built at a cost of about 900 million yen ($6.9 million), the Ezo Brown Bear Museum is the first large-scale facility in nine years to be introduced at the zoo.

"Hokkaido is a rare island in the world where large animals like brown bears and humans co-exist," said director Gen Bando. "I hope this serves as a starter for visitors to learn about the greatness of brown bears and think about the relationship between brown bears and humans, which has become a major issue in recent years."

Over the past years, brown bear sightings have become increasingly common, with the mammals wandering into urban areas and coming out of hibernation early.

The zoo became a popular attraction after it set a precedent with its "behavior exhibits," such as this latest one, that display animals as they behave in their natural habitats.

Members of the media got a sneak peek of the Ezo Brown Bear Museum on April 25.

The new facility is divided into a 448-square-meter outdoor area and a 45-square-meter indoor area.

The outdoor section is planted with a variety of trees growing in the northernmost prefecture, such as Sargent's cherry and Japanese oak. Rainbow trout swim in a creek that runs through the area.

A fake tree measuring 4.7 meters tall is wrapped with a rope so the brown bears can climb it.

Landscapes of the Shiretoko Peninsula, a UNESCO World Heritage site that boasts a high-density population of brown bears, are projected onto the wall of the indoor area to make the bears feel more at home.

Thanks to the help of the Shiretoko Nature Foundation, a public interest incorporated foundation that protects wildlife and fosters forests in the region, there is also an exhibit that shows a traffic jam that occurred because of sightseers taking photos in a spot regularly visited by brown bears.

A female brown bear named Tonko, which was taken into captivity after her parent was killed in Nakatonbetsu in northern Hokkaido in 1999, is also on exhibition in the new facility.

Since the facility is equipped with a delivery room, zoo officials said they are considering bringing in a male for breeding.

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