{"id":670109,"date":"2026-05-14T09:30:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T09:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/670109\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T09:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T09:30:11","slug":"robot-wolves-in-high-demand-to-scare-off-bears-in-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/670109\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Robot wolves&#8217; in high demand to scare off bears in Japan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A Japanese company making ferocious-looking robot wolves is being swamped by orders after record numbers of fatal bear attacks on humans last year.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.japantimes.co.jp\/news\/2022\/12\/26\/national\/wildlife-pests-drones-robots\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Monster Wolf<\/a> is an animatoronic scarecrow with flashing red eyes that howls and growls menacingly to scare away wild animals.<\/p>\n<p>Ohta Seiki, the Hokkaido-based firm that makes the devices, has already received around 50 orders this year, more than the usual volume for an entire year.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We make them by hand. We cannot make them fast enough now. We are asking our customers to wait two to three months,&#8221; company President Yuji Ohta said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Awareness of bear safety and measures against wildlife damage (on farm products) improved. There was also a growing recognition that our product is effective in dealing with bears,&#8221; Ohta said.<\/p>\n<p>Orders come mostly from farmers, operators of golf courses and people working outside in rural areas such as in construction.<\/p>\n<p>Bears killed 13 people across Japan in 2025-2026, more than twice the previous high.<\/p>\n<p>More than <a href=\"https:\/\/www.japantimes.co.jp\/news\/2026\/05\/12\/japan\/society\/2025-bear-numbers\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">50,000 bear sightings were recorded nationwide<\/a>, more than double the previous record set two years before, according to official data.<\/p>\n<p>The animals were seen entering homes, roaming near schools and rampaging through supermarkets and hot spring resorts on an almost daily basis.<\/p>\n<p>The number of bears captured and then culled nearly tripled from a year earlier to 14,601, also marking an all-time high.<\/p>\n<p>Some northern regions also reported in April more than four times as many sightings as last year as the animals emerge from hibernation, local media said.<\/p>\n<p>Monster Wolf features artificial fur draped over an assembled pipe frame, attached to speakers, topped with a menacing, open-mouthed face.<\/p>\n<p>For prices starting from around $4,000 or higher, the system comes with a battery, solar panels, sensors, speakers and other apparatus.<\/p>\n<p>It broadcasts more than 50 kinds of recorded sounds, including human voices and electronic noises, audible up to one kilometer away.<\/p>\n<p>The device turns its head from side to side, flashes red LED eyes, while its tail is equipped with blue LEDs.<\/p>\n<p>Ohta introduced the product in 2016 to prevent damage to agricultural products by deer, boars and bears, and it was initially derided as a gimmick.<\/p>\n<p>The company is now upgrading the device by putting it on wheels to chase animals or patrol specific paths.<\/p>\n<p>Ohta also plans to develop a hand-held version for hikers, anglers and schoolchildren, while also exploring artificial intelligence cameras for future models.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We wanted to apply our manufacturing to do our part to deal with bears,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Japanese company making ferocious-looking robot wolves is being swamped by orders after record numbers of fatal bear&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670110,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[6634,1313,64,63,4632,17895,128,338,1530],"class_list":["post-670109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-agriculture","tag-animals","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bears","tag-robots","tag-science","tag-wildlife","tag-wolves"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}