‘They will continue to increase’…Why have bears started to come down to human settlements? What is the expert’s opinion?

It would be more accurate to say that they will continue to increase and are in the process of doing so.”

Brown bears are frequently seen in Hokkaido. At Lake Shumarinai in the town of Horokanai in northern Hokkaido, a fisherman was attacked and even killed. There has also been a string of bear sightings in residential areas in urban areas such as Sapporo and Muroran. The number of reports coming in to the Hokkaido police is said to be at a record pace.

Why have so many bears been seen in human settlements this year? We asked Professor Yoshikazu Sato of Dairy Farming University, who is a member of the Hokkaido Brown Bear Protection Management Study Group and is at the forefront of brown bear countermeasures.

He said, “The period from May to July is the brown bear’s breeding season, when the bear’s range of activities expands. Males move around in the mountains in search of females, and females with cubs are more likely to appear in human settlements to escape from males. It is true that during this time of year, there are many appearances of parent and cub bears around urban areas.

However, it would be more accurate to say that the number is increasing every year and will continue to increase, and that we are in the process of seeing more of them, rather than that there are more this year in particular.”

So when did the number of bears begin to increase?

Around the year 2000, bears began to be seen near the downtown area of Sapporo. At first it was bears coming from deep in the mountains, but eventually the number of bears living in the urban area began to increase. Moiwa, which can be seen from the center of Sapporo, has a rich forest that has been protected by a protected primeval forest, making it a very comfortable place for bears to live.

In terms of the whole Hokkaido area, I have the impression that the number of bears appearing in urban areas is increasing in areas where there have not been many bear problems in the past. Or, I feel that in areas where there has been no bear damage and no need for extermination, bears are appearing not only in farmland but also in urban areas.

The year 1990 was a turning point, says Sato. The “spring bear extermination system” that began in 1966 in Hokkaido was abolished in 1990.

Until ’89, hunters actively shot bears in March and April, following their tracks on the mountain snow surfaces. That led to a decline in Hokkaido’s bear population, especially on the Sea of Japan side, where there is a lot of snowfall.

Since the abolition of the spring bear extermination system, we have changed our approach to exterminating bears caught in traps set mainly around farmland, as the Birds and Wild Animals Protection and Management Law prohibits shooting bears on roads or after sunset. Now, 30 years after its abolition, the bear population has clearly increased.”

According to calculations by the Hokkaido Prefectural Government, the estimated number of bears in the area was 5,200 in FY 1990, but by FY 2008, the number had almost doubled to 11,700.