JAPAN DEPLOYS TROOPS TO TAME TERRIFYING BEAR ONSLAUGHT IN AKITA MOUNTAINS

Thu 06 November 2025:

Japan’s military has sent soldiers to a rugged, mountainous area in the northern Akita Prefecture to assist in combating a dramatic rise in bear attacks that have left locals in fear.

Over the past seven months, nationwide figures from the Ministry of the Environment, reported as of late October, show at least 12 fatalities and over 100 injuries from bear encounters across the country.

An older woman who went mushroom hunting in the forest was found dead in an apparent attack over the weekend in Yuzawa city. Another older woman in Akita city was killed after encountering a bear while working on a farm in late October. A newspaper deliveryman was attacked and injured in Akita city on Tuesday.

The growing bear population’s encroachment into residential areas is happening in a region with a rapidly ageing and declining human population, with few people trained to hunt the animals. The government has estimated the overall bear population at more than 54,000.

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Soldiers, however, will not open fire on the bears after the Ministry of Defense and Akita prefecture signed an agreement Wednesday that troops will set box traps with food, transport local hunters and help dispose of dead bears.

“Every day, bears intrude into residential areas in the region and their impact is expanding,” Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Fumitoshi Sato told reporters. “Responses to the bear problem are an urgent matter.”

The operation began in a forested area in Kazuno city, where a number of bear sightings and injuries have been reported. White-helmeted soldiers wearing bulletproof vests and carrying bear spray and net launchers set up a bear trap near an orchard.

Japan’s Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi stated on Tuesday that the troop deployment for the bear crisis is intended to safeguard residents’ everyday safety, though he emphasized that soldiers’ core duty remains national defense and their assistance in bear control cannot be indefinite.

In Akita Prefecture, home to roughly 880,000 people, bears have assaulted over 50 individuals since May, resulting in at least four deaths, per local authorities—with the majority of incidents happening in populated neighborhoods.

Experts attribute the escalating issue partly to Japan’s shrinking and aging rural demographics, noting that bears are not at risk of extinction and require population management through targeted culling.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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