Hokkaido’s Brown Bear Population Has Doubled Since 1990

The number of brown bears in Hokkaido has been increasing for the last 30 years, and the prefectural government is taking notice.

 

Until 1990, Hokkaido had a policy of allowing hunters to exterminate brown bears but this was abolished due to conservation concerns.

Since that time, researchers at Hokkaido University and other institutions have confirmed a rapid increase in the brown bear population, something anecdotally understood by many farmers and residents of Hokkaido’s rural and suburban areas.

The Hokkaido government estimates that the brown bear population has more than doubled from 5,200 in 1990 to nearly 12,000 in 2020.

Since 1990, bear population control has relied on private hunters that can trap the animals, but those with the proper experience and expertise are an ageing, dwindling demographic.

The “Brown Bear Society”, a group of researchers in Hokkaido, has recommended to Governor Naomichi Suzuki on 13 March of this year that the prefectural government establish regional public organisations throughout the island that can recruit people for bear capture.

However, as many small town and rural communities have limited public funds, questions of feasibility and financing remain.

The danger of bear incursions into populated areas – even the edge of the Sapporo urban area – has increased due to climate change, not simply because of bear population growth.

Hokkaido University researchers have confirmed that changing weather patterns have often disrupted seasonal food supplies for the bears, making them more likely to approach populated areas, especially in the summer and fall when preparing for winter hibernation.

Sources:
Asian Research News – 18 November 2021
The Hokkaido Shimbun – 13 July 2023

Image:
Captain76 (article thumbnail) Wild Bear, Shiretoko Peninsula, Hokkaido

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