Japan’s deadliest surge in bear attacks is gripping the nation. Upgrade to watch the full report.
Sunagawa, Japan
—
Haruo Ikegami starts each day at dawn.
Just as sunlight interrupts the darkness over his small Hokkaido city, the 76-year-old pulls on his rain boots and dons a bright orange jacket. This is his uniform, he tells me.
After grabbing his walkie talkies, he trudges across his frosted garden and climbs into a green van, adorned with stickers reading “on bear patrol.” His vehicle is instantly recognizable here. Along the drive, neighbors call out, asking about recent sightings.
Ikegami is somewhat of a local hero in this rural community. Over his 40-year career, he’s culled dozens of bears and sees his work as a crucial line of defense between the town and the increasingly unpredictable wilderness.
“Without me,” he said, “who else would save this town?”
The metal cages he’s set up are scattered across Sunagawa city, each baited with slabs of deer meat and positioned where bears have been spotted this year. The day we accompany him, his traps are empty. But he warns that the bears are never far, increasingly pushing into human territory and frightening those who live here.
“People are dead. This is a murder case,” the hunter told CNN.
This year, at least 13 people have been killed and more than 200 wounded injured in bear encounters. Videos of bears rummaging through supermarket aisles, roaming school grounds and plucking persimmons from suburban backyards have gone viral on Japanese social media. Some schools have also closed temporarily, while residents in parts of northern Japan avoid going out after dark.
The crisis has sparked national alarm. Japan’s defense minister has deployed the Self-Defense Forces to hard-hit regions, and lawmakers are scrambling to find long-term solutions. The US and UK embassies have also issued advisories to travelers in rural areas.
But for hunters, the crisis feels both frightening – and predictable.
“There are just too many bears now, it’s an emergency situation,” Ikegami said.
Japan’s bear population has skyrocketed, while the number of licensed hunters has plummeted.
With more than a third of Japan’s population now over 65, rural towns are shrinking. Few young residents remain, and even fewer are willing to take up hunting, Ikegami said, a dangerous job with low pay and little appeal compared to urban life in places like Tokyo.
“If the government had taken this seriously earlier, it wouldn’t have gotten this bad,” Atsushi Kanno, a 37-year-old bear hunter, told CNN. “It’s nonsense that they’re responding now, only after things have escalated.”
There are several factors driving the surge in encounters.
One is simply numbers. The population of the Hokkaido brown bear, one of two bear species in Japan, has more than doubled in the last 30 years, with nearly 12,000 of the animals now roaming the country’s northernmost prefecture. The stocky cousins of the grizzly can stand nearly seven feet tall and are found only in Hokkaido.
The other species, the Asiatic black bear, is smaller, reaching about five-and-a-half feet. But it’s responsible for fatal attacks as well, particularly in northern prefectures such as Akita and Iwate.
Experts say climate change is another factor. Poor harvests of nuts and fruit are pushing bears to seek food elsewhere.
“When it’s scarce, bears must find food. I believe bears are taking a step closer to human settlements,” Hiroo Tamatani, a bear conservationist, told CNN.
Japan’s demographic shifts also compound the problem. Rural towns and farmland once formed a natural buffer between deep forest and populated centers. But as those areas empty out, bears are moving in, taking advantage of the new real estate.
Culling is currently Japan’s primary response for bears that attack people or encroach on residential areas.
The government has amended laws to allow riot police to use firearms more easily. But the Self-Defense Forces remain legally prohibited from using weapons unless national defense is at stake, leaving hunters like Ikegami on the frontlines.
He trains young hunters, but few have the skill or confidence to take down animals that can weigh several hundred pounds. At the same time, he regularly receives angry phone calls urging him not to kill bears.
“As long as we live here, we simply can’t coexist,” he said.
“Our lives are precious to us. No person would say a bear’s life is more important than their own,” Ikegami added.
Bear hunter Katsuo Harada shares that view. While the 84-year-old still goes out to hunt, his two apprentices largely take the helm in helping reinforce the boundary between the forest and residential areas.
Harada also knows first-hand how powerful these bears can be. He was nearly killed by a bear more than 20 years ago while hunting deer.
“I fired two shots, but the bear didn’t stop. It got on top of me, pulled by gun out of my hands and bit by head,” he told CNN.
“My eye and ear were hanging off,” he said.
In the chaos, he shoved his fist down the bear’s throat, cutting off its airway just long enough for the bullets to take effect. Harada says he remembers little after that, as he was fading in and out of consciousness. But he recalls reaching for his walkie-talkie and calling his friends, who were on the hunt with him, to get help.
He keeps the bear’s skull as a reminder of how quickly the roles can reverse—from hunter to hunted.
Public opinion largely supports culling. Many in Japan now fear hiking or traveling to prefectures with recent attacks, and a growing number prefer visiting “no-bear prefectures,” areas with no known bear populations.
But conservationists warn against blanket killing.
“Rather than killing them all, we should identify the ones that cause problems and deal with those respectively,” Tamatani said.
He works at a nonprofit called Picchio, which uses dogs to deter bears, and tags bears to track their movements. Tamatani also advocates planting bear food trees away from residential zones, so they have access to natural resources further from towns.
While repeat offenders may still be culled, he argues that these measures reduce unnecessary deaths.
“Bears are not monsters. They’re animals that live just like us.”
Japan continues searching for solutions that protect human life while allowing wildlife to survive.
“Humans and animals have lived side by side for a long time. Sometimes we harmed each other, but we still must respect and acknowledge one another,” Tougen Yoshihara, a Buddhist monk who was attacked by a bear in May, told CNN.
Yoshihara survived only because his dog, Chico, barked and chased the bear away, he said. He escaped with minor injuries, but the experience has haunted him—he now carries a carving knife when walking in the woods.
For now, Japan stands at a crossroads. The country is pulled between fear and the desire to coexist with the bears, an important part of Japan’s ecosystem.
But until a lasting solution emerges, more lives, human and animal alike, will likely pay the price.