Karuizawa, Nagano Prefecture, has recorded no bear attacks on people in 16 years, a result the town credits to zoning — a buffer strip between bear habitat and residential areas that the animals are kept from crossing. The town sits in the mountains and has had no attack in a residential area since 2009, the Japan Agricultural News reported.
Sightings have not fallen. The town logged 208 bears in fiscal 2025, a year of heavy bear damage nationwide, including in forests and on mountain trails. This fiscal year it counted 188 through the end of September.
Dogs bred to hunt brown bears
The town has worked on zoning with the nonprofit Picchio since 2007. The work includes clearing brush to create the buffer strip and making people's presence felt at the forest edge so bears do not grow used to coming closer.
The centerpiece is patrols by bear dogs. Karuizawa brought in Karelian dogs, a breed used in Finland to hunt brown bears. From June to October, when bears are most active, the dogs patrol the town every day. When a bear tries to enter a residential area, they bark and drive it back into the forest.
Farmers play a part by keeping the land in use. Many in the town run electric fences meant for deer and wild boar, and these also keep bears out. Hiroshiro Nakazato, 53, who farms 8 hectares of cabbage and other crops, said losing farms to abandonment would only push bears toward town. "I will keep this farmland going," he said.
The town has also installed bear-proof bins and tracking devices and drawn up a map of bear habitat as part of the zoning effort.
Koriyama clears fruit trees left untended
Zoning gets harder where mountain villages empty out, because nothing then stands between the forest and the town. Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture, has tried to adapt since sightings in its built-up areas rose sharply last year. The city has begun removing untended fruit trees, such as persimmons, that draw bears in.
Since last fiscal year, Koriyama has set sensor cameras in areas with frequent sightings, analyzed the routes bears take and placed cage traps along them. This fiscal year it added portable electric fences, intended for use at schools and similar sites, and bought drones fitted with infrared cameras and speakers that can play warning sounds.
The city's agricultural production and distribution division said zoning also requires maintaining the wooded hills between town and mountain, which makes it a medium- to long-term effort. For now the city is concentrating on bears that come into built-up areas, to cut the number of people hurt.
“Zoning also requires maintaining the satoyama, so it will take a medium- to long-term span. First we are focusing on measures against bears that appear in urban areas, to reduce human casualties.”Koriyama agricultural production and distribution division, city office