Bears kill 13, injure over 100 in Japan’s worst wave of attacks PHOTO

Japan is recording a surge in bear attacks, with at least 13 people killed and more than 100 injured over the past eight months.

The highest number of incidents has been reported in Akita and Iwate prefectures, where bears have been entering villages, shops, and even hotels, Caliber.Az reports per The Independent.

The rise in human–bear encounters has prompted Japan’s tourism authorities to begin preparing new safety measures for visitors at hot spring resorts.

The Japan Tourism Agency plans to fund up to 50% of the cost of installing protective fences around open-air hot spring baths — rotenburo — in traditional ryokan inns. The measure will form part of a national safety plan expected to be approved by the end of the month.

Project details are still being discussed with hotel owners, some of whom worry that the fences could spoil natural landscapes that are important to guests.

However, authorities stress that safety comes first, especially after recent incidents in which bears entered hotel grounds in the Tohoku region.

Japan’s bear population has surged to more than 50,000 across brown and black species, and experts warn the animals are now spilling beyond their shrinking mountain habitats as climate change, rural depopulation, and a steep drop in hunter numbers deepen the crisis.

The government reinstated population control measures in 2024 after years of protection, yet the effort is constrained by a dwindling and ageing hunter workforce, now less than half its size in 1980.

Even with limited manpower, authorities culled more than 9,000 bears in 2023–24 and over 4,200 between April and September this year, including more than 1,000 in Akita prefecture.

By Jeyhun Aghazada