Photo/Illutration An Asian black bear (Provided by the Toyama prefectural government)

The central government plans to dispatch experts across the country to deal with bear problems as the number of attacks on humans hit a record-high 177 this year.

Officials from the environment, agriculture and other ministries held a meeting on Oct. 31 to discuss measures to counter an increasing number of bear attacks, some fatal.

The Environment Ministry will begin an emergency program in November to dispatch bear experts to prefectures and municipalities around Japan that have requested assistance dealing with bear problems. The government will cover their expenses as well.

At least 177 people have been attacked by bears nationwide this year as of Oct. 31, the highest number since record-keeping started in 2006, according to figures from prefectural governments compiled by The Asahi Shimbun.

The previous record was 158 in 2020.

Humans have been attacked by bears in 18 prefectures this year. Akita reported the largest number of victims, 61, followed by 41 in Iwate, 13 in Fukushima and 11 in Aomori.

Two people were killed in Iwate, and one each in Hokkaido, Toyama and Nagano.

Koji Yamazaki, a professor of animal ecology at the Tokyo University of Agriculture, who attended the meeting on Oct. 31, said bears have appeared near human settlements more frequently this year partly because they cannot get enough food in the mountains.

In a survey conducted by the Tohoku Regional Forest Office, beech trees, said to be correlated with bear appearances in northeastern Japan, were determined to be having an “extremely poor harvest” in the prefectures of Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi, Akita and Yamagata in the Tohoku region.

Yamazaki said bears could search for food and delay their hibernation if persimmons and other food sources are available in human settlements.

He said it will be important to manage food of human origin for the next month or so.

Shinsuke Koike, a professor of ecology at the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, said a poor harvest of nuts is one of the reasons for the increase in bear attacks, but pointed out that an environment has been created that makes it easier for bears to encroach upon human settlements.

More farmland has been abandoned, brushes have not been cleared, and trees such as persimmon and chestnut have been left unattended due to a decline in the human population.

“Bears may have learned to eat food in many places without knowing where forests end and human settlements begin,” he said.

The number of locations nationwide where bear sightings and captures were reported increased 1.38 times in fiscal 2018 from fiscal 2003, according to an Environment Ministry survey of bear habitats.

(This article was written by Kai Ichino, Tetsuya Ishikura and Takahiro Takenouchi.)

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