Event: Tochigi Prefectural

Utsunomiya, Tochigi Pref. – Utsunomiya was on edge.It was early June and a bear was running rampant in the Tochigi Prefectural capital, throwing the city of 500,000 into a state of paralysis.Schools were closed, residents were frantically checking their gardens for any signs of the animal and specialists from the local zoo were deployed to bring the bear under control.The three-day chase ended when a zookeeper shot the bear with a tranquilizer gun near a private residence.The dramatic episode, which was widely shown on TV and the internet, was the latest in a growing number of conflicts between humans and bears in Japan.Following last fiscal year’s record-breaking number of bear-related incidents — nationwide, 238 people were attacked and 13 were killed — Japan is bracing for another pre-hibernation surge in sightings, encounters and attacks this fall. So far, experts say the relatively rich acorn harvests this year would keep many bears sufficiently fed, likely preventing the recurrence of horrors played out across the Tohoku and Kanto regions last autumn.But in the medium to long term, Japan’s challenges will continue, with incidents like the one in Utsunomiya being only a harbinger of what could happen in other communities.Nationwide countermeasuresLast November, the central government compiled an emergency bear attack prevention plan aimed at actively reducing the number of bears in the country and increasing staff and resources for bear management and culling, including through the wider adoption of “government hunters.”In March, the government followed up with a roadmap outlining steps to take by 2030, such as tripling the number of municipal officials in charge of capturing bears to 2,500 and doubling the number of bear traps to 10,000 across the nation. A male bear that wandered into Utsunomiya, Tochigi Prefecture, in June is seen on a path after being shot with a…