Overview

• Hokkaido prefectural offices logged about 120 protest calls and emails over the culling of the bear that killed a delivery man, prompting Governor Naomichi Suzuki to warn that the volume of complaints is hindering official work.
• In Akkeshi Town, police officers, town staff and hunters practiced safe urban culling procedures, simulating firing from 50 meters under controlled conditions.
• Staff and officers at Ichinoseki’s Higashiyama Elementary School taught around 170 students to avoid and respond to bear encounters through lectures and a police-led skit.
• Yamagata City police used drones, box traps and tranquilizer darts in a two-day search for a one-meter bear sighted in residential areas but failed to capture it, resulting in the temporary closure of a local elementary school.
• Municipalities and law enforcement agencies across northern Japan are intensifying community outreach and emergency culling training in anticipation of an amended Wildlife Protection Act taking effect in September.