There are signs warning people to be on cautious, and some residents of northern Japan have attached bells to their bags in the hopes that the noise will deter bears.
Since April, bears have murdered a record 13 people nationwide. There have been several stories of bears breaking into houses, wandering around schools, and going on rampages in supermarkets.
"We hear news almost every day about people being attacked or injured," stated Kakeru Matsuhashi, a 28-year-old traditional "Matagi" hunter, while carrying a knife through a forest.
He continued, "It's becoming something that feels personal, and it's simply frightening," in the northern prefecture of Akita, which has been the target of numerous attacks.

With five months remaining in the fiscal year, the number of fatalities this year is double that of the previous high set in 2023–2024.
Although data from some areas is inconsistent, Japan has had some of the highest rates of fatal attacks worldwide in recent years.
Another Akita resident, Keiji Minatoya, is all too familiar with this; in 2023, a bear jumped out of his garage, pinned him to the ground, and bit his face.
"I was thinking: 'This is how I die,'" stated Minatoya, 68, who was able to flee and seek safety in his house.

Scientists claim that this year's poor acorn harvest and a rapidly expanding bear population are to blame for the spike in attacks, which has left some mountains "overcrowded" with ravenous bears, and the government is currently rushing to address the situation.
Riot police will be permitted to use rifles to shoot bears, which can weigh half a ton and outrun humans, while troops have been sent to assist with the logistics of hunting and catching bears.
One of the victims is a 67-year-old man from Iwate, a neighborhood near Akita, whose body was discovered outside his house with scars and animal bite marks.
After being called to the scene, hunters shot a bear close to the house.

In the neighboring woods, his body was found.

According to official figures, over 100 persons were injured in the six months leading up to September, setting a new high.
"Overcrowded" Bears
A significant problem is the bear population, which is rapidly increasing as a result of an availability of food, such as acorns, deer, and boars, brought on by a warming environment, according to specialists.
According to a recent official assessment, the number of Asian black bears on Japan's main island of Honshu has increased to 42,000, while the country's brown bear population has doubled in three decades to approximately 12,000.

Naoki Ohnishi, a researcher at the Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, claims that some mountains are now "overcrowded".
"Put simply, the size of the bear population has gone beyond the capacity of the mountains to hold them," he stated.
Acorns still produce good and terrible harvests every two to five years as part of their typical crop cycle, despite the fact that rising temperatures have made bumper crops more common.
There is a shortage both this year and in 2023, the year Minatoya was attacked.
According to Shinsuke Koike, a professor at the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, recent poor harvests have caused some bears, together with their pups, to venture into towns in search of food, even though the majority of bears still live in the mountains.

According to Koike, cubs in particular become less afraid and develop a taste for ordinary fruits like persimmon and farmed food when they are exposed to humans.
The traditional lines between humans and bears have become more hazy as a result of steady rural depopulation brought on by a persistently low birthrate and young people relocating to cities.
"Bear habitats inched closer to human habitats in 2023," stated Ohnishi. "This year, they are coming a step further because they are starting from where they left off."

"Observing A Catastrophe"
Professor of emergency and critical care at Akita University Hospital Hajime Nakae stated he felt like he was "living inside... a safari park for bears" because of the frequent bear sightings.
The physician, who has been treating bear injuries for thirty years, claimed that as bears grow less fearful of people, the form of wounds is changing.
In the past, a frightened bear would have hit a person in the face before running away, but these days "they charge at you from about 10 metres and then leap at you."
In the absence of significant action, he predicted that bear injuries would rise and spread to other regions of the country, adding, "We are witnessing a disaster."

According to researcher Ohnishi, "thorough culling" to lower the bear population is the only practical strategy to lower the risk for locals.
Last year, the government reversed the safeguard that had allowed bears to flourish by adding bears to the list of animals subject to population control.
However, there are fewer than half as many hunters as there were in 1980, and rural resources are scarce.
According to the most recent data available in 2020, there were about 220,000, the majority of whom were 60 years of age or older.
Between April and September of this year, Japan killed about 4,200 bears, compared to over 9,000 in 2023–2024.
So far, Akita alone has killed more than 1,000.
Japan's concerns should lessen in the near future, if only momentarily.The bears would soon go to sleep for the winter, according to experts Koike and Ohnishi, who stated that hibernation practices had not changed.