SENDAI - Japan is known for having some of the strictest gun control laws in the world. Last year, the country gave municipal mayors the power to order emergency bear shootings, but the resulting tensions show just how difficult it is to pull the trigger in crowded neighborhoods.
According to an Environment Ministry tally, the measure, which was enabled last September by a law revision that lifted a longstanding ban on shooting in residential areas, had been used 72 times in 12 prefectures by June -- about 80 percent of these uses in urban areas.
But mayors still face tough calls in neighborhoods packed with homes and shops, where stray bullets and ricochets could put residents at risk.
GUNS UNUSED
"We have done our best, but regret that we failed to produce results," Fukushima Mayor Yuki Baba told an impromptu press conference a day after a bear escaped despite an emergency response after it attacked four people in early June.
The bear attacked two employees at parts manufacturer Fukushima Steel Works Co. in the early hours of June 2 and then attacked a person at a nearby residence and another at electronics company Oki Sympho-Tech Co. in the city.
That afternoon, Baba decided to invoke the emergency shooting framework for the city for the first time. But responders could not use a hunting gun as the animal had gone inside a factory building that contained flammable materials.
The bear was hit with a tranquilizer dart but did not fall asleep. The following night, the mammal fled the site, possibly by unlatching a window, and has not been captured since.
Officials said they followed Environment Ministry guidelines but were caught off guard by a series of unexpected developments. A city official said, "We want to review the series of responses for the future."
In Utsunomiya, a city in Tochigi Prefecture north of Tokyo with a population of 500,000, residents reported repeated bear sightings in the city center for days in early June.
Officials found a roughly 100-kilogram bear under the eaves of a house on June 9 and captured it with a tranquilizer because the neighborhood was densely populated.
HUNTER SHORTAGES
Under the framework, municipal employees or hunting club members with hunting licenses carry out the actual shooting.
The Japan Hunters Association said about 57,000 members held a first-class hunting license for rifles or shotguns in fiscal 2024, a roughly 70 percent decline from fiscal 1994.
The Toyama prefectural government on the Sea of Japan plans to subsidize necessary costs for buying hunting guns and to hold training for new hunters this fall.
But "It takes 10 years to become capable of shooting a bear, so we cannot expect them to be deployed right after training," a prefectural official said.
A city in the Tohoku region in northeastern Japan hired a "government hunter," or a public employee with a hunting license, this year, but an official said staffing limits hinder training.
"We do not have enough staff at city hall, so even if we can hire them, we cannot manage training," the official said.
Since the first emergency bear shooting took place in Sendai, a major Tohoku city, on Oct. 15, the measure was used 11 times in October, 30 times in November and 14 times in December. Only two cases were recorded from January to March, when bears typically hibernate.
However, the number climbed to 15 since April, as bear activity increased. Approximately 80 percent of the shootings occurred in urban areas, while the rest took place near farmland and rivers.
By prefecture, Yamagata in Tohoku recorded the most with 19 cases, followed by neighboring Niigata with 14, Akita and Toyama with seven each, and Iwate and Fukushima, both also in Tohoku, with five each. The six Tohoku prefectures accounted for 43 cases, or about 60 percent of the total.
