神から害獣へFrom Gods to Pests

This week, there was news that a man in his twenties, who had been climbing in Shiretoko, the northernmost World Heritage site of Japan, encountered a mother bear and her cub, was dragged into the forest, and was found dead several days later. In fact, since the COVID-19 pandemic, the rapid depopulation of rural mountain regions in the Japanese archipelago has accelerated, and in my own experience, I feel that bear-related news has increased significantly over the past five years.

When I traveled around northeastern Tohoku for about ten days in the first half of September last year, in places such as Kita-Akita and Odate, located on the border of Aomori and Akita prefectures, bears were descending into towns on a daily basis, and warnings were being issued. The situation had become so frequent that local news sites even had a special “bear” category. When I spoke with people from various regions, they unanimously said that never before had bears appeared so often in human living spaces, and that the major environmental changes reducing bear habitats were accelerating this phenomenon of bears descending from the mountains into human settlements. However, that is not the only reason.

In the past, Japan’s mountain regions had specialized hunting groups who, during designated seasons, hunted in order to artificially regulate bear populations so they would not become excessive. Especially in Hokkaido, Tohoku, and also Nagano Prefecture, areas where bears were originally numerous, a hunting culture of capturing bears had spread, with thousands of years of history. For example, the mountain hunters who lived in the Akita mountain region of northeastern Tohoku were called “Matagi,” but now, due to aging and urban migration, their numbers are approaching zero.

Furthermore, in the mountain regions of Akita it was once common to keep Akita dogs, but after the period of high economic growth, people began following Tokyo trends and started keeping small dogs, and the situation drastically changed. Large Akita dogs, having the temperament of hunting dogs, were strong enough to drive bears away when they approached, but small dogs were no match, and thus became a factor in bears entering human settlements without any fear. Even when visiting modern Kita-Akita, there are almost no people seen outside, and from the perspective of the bears, there is little danger in descending into towns. As a result, bears frequently appear even at elementary schools.

The roots of the Matagi themselves are historically uncertain, and although some have claimed it derives from the Ainu language, the Matagi of Kita-Akita themselves are skeptical of this, saying rather that an indigenous term later influenced Ainu language. On the other hand, regarding bear habitats, Hokkaido is home to brown bears (Higuma), while other regions are home to Asiatic black bears (Tsukinowaguma).

As for the Hokkaido brown bear, the Jomon, the people of the Okhotsk culture who came from the north, and multiple other groups that crossed into Hokkaido were all involved, and even looking at the Ainu culture that formed around the 12th–13th centuries, it is clear that bear hunting was practiced to a certain degree. In Hokkaido, it is very difficult to identify the pre-Ainu cultures, but even among the Ainu, rituals known as “Iyomante” were performed, in which the soul of an animal was sent back to the world of the gods. Records from the Edo period suggest that bears were mainly used, but if one traces back further, it is possible that orcas and whales and other sea creatures had once been the subjects. This suggests that the formation of Ainu culture overlaps with the lives of people who had crossed the sea.

On this archipelago, people have had repeated contact with bears since ancient times, but after the postwar period of high economic growth, nature and human living spaces became completely divided, and now almost no one has any resistance toward bears. The very use of the word “extermination” (kujo) makes this self-evident, and the ancient sense of yaoyorozu (八百万, the eight million gods) no longer lives here.

In fact, I myself have often gone into bear habitats, but I have only seen them directly about twice; although I have often seen footprints and other signs, actual encounters were rare. In the past, due to the impact of hunting, there was even a time when it was said that bears might go extinct like the Japanese wolf, which was exterminated in the Meiji period. However, now, due to overlapping factors such as depopulation and extreme aging of rural areas, bear populations are instead showing a tendency to increase. Added to this, climate change and environmental destruction are expanding bear habitats beyond the mountains, and we are entering an era where people who have lived only in urban areas are frequently encountering bears depending on the region. A friend of mine living in northeastern Tohoku resides in a town, yet says that at night bears wander the streets, which indicates just how much bears have become an everyday presence.

Considering this, it can be said that now more than ever, it is necessary to be prepared for bear encounters when entering the mountains. From a historical perspective, when the Japanese archipelago was still connected to the continent, large animals such as mammoths lived here, and it is thought that bears too migrated at that time. While many animals, such as mammoths and wolves, have since gone extinct, bears have coexisted with the ancestors of this archipelago for tens of thousands of years. Now, this coexistence is being regarded as harmful amid the changes of modern life, and the era when bears were seen as gods has ended; today, they are instead regarded as pests that threaten human life.

In any case, depending on the region, encounters with bears may increasingly become part of everyday life.