Back in October, I wrote about the Sankebetsu brown bear incident, in which one freakishly badass bear ate an entire Japanese village:
Odo had remained at the house as the only bodyguard. When he ran for the door, the bear released the mother and child to pursue him. Yayo then escaped with her children. Odo attempted to hide behind furniture, but was clawed in the back. The bear then mauled Kinzo, the third son of the Miyoke family, and Haruyoshi, the fourth son of the Saito family, killing them, and bit Iwao, third son of Saito family. Next to be targeted was Take, Saito Ishigoro’s pregnant wife. As the animal advanced she pled for her life and that of her unborn child, but it was in vain. She too was attacked, killed, and partially eaten.
(And it gets worse.)
Maybe you are wondering, “How do Japanese people and bear people get along nowadays?” The answer is, um, not that great. People are just not that into bears, and Japanese conservationists are desperately scrambling to save them.
In 2006, a stunning 4,340 of Japan’s black bears were legally killed because they were perceived to be a threat (the figure does not include those killed by sports hunters). No one knows how many black bears live in Japan, but Maita fears the 2006 kills may have represented up to sixty percent of the entire population.
That article also includes an interesting breakdown of the history of Japanese man/bear diplomatic relations:
This crisis in the coexistence of humans and bears is a relatively recent phenomenon. For most of the history of civilization in Japan, the boundary between bear habitat and human habitat was clearly defined — and defended. Bears lived in what was called okuyama, the deep mountains where humans rarely ventured except to hunt and cut wood. While overharvesting of timber was a problem as early as the eighth century, by the 17th century a system of regulations had developed which averted the wholesale destruction of Japan’s forests. The result was that with the exception of some early silviculture the okuyama was covered largely in natural forest and was regarded with fearful respect as the abode of the gods. Rural population was concentrated in small farming villages. Between the two was a buffer zone of managed woodland called satoyama, where villagers collected firewood and cut weeds and grass to enrich their rice fields, and animals such as bears and the deer-like serow rarely strayed.
See what you did, Kesagake? Seeee!?
You’re awesome.