In this country with the highest number of ATMs per capita in the world, you can find just about anything and everything. Including, recently, wild bear meat.
There is at least one distributor who has been talking a lot about him for a few weeks. We are in the north of the main island of Japan, in the mountainous province of Akita, renowned for its thermal waters, its refined sakes and… its black bears, the hunting of which is an ancestral tradition and perfectly legal (but controversial).
At the station, passengers taking the Shinkansen, the Japanese high-speed train, can leave with a little souvenir: vacuum-packed bear meat for 15 euros for 250 grams, accessible 24 hours a day.
Newspapers, like Mainichi Shinbunwhich evokes the success of this distributor, installed in November, specifies that “the bears are captured in the mountains by members of a hunting club and the meat is prepared in a slaughterhouse.“
A tourist attraction
For the moment, the machine distributes about fifteen packets per week. But word of mouth is working: the operator has received delivery requests from Tokyo, more than 400 km away. Bear meat is a delicacy, rich in fiber, vitamins, collagen. In terms of taste, it is often compared to venison. The tourist office also recommends going to taste the stew of a local restaurant. In short, it has become a tourist and culinary attraction, but limited, because there are quotas not to be exceeded. However, around 1,000 bears were killed in the Akita region last year.
Of course, that’s not for everyone. Animal rights activists point out that “thehe bears are wild animals not supposed to end up in cooked dishes“. They defend their role in preserving the ecosystem and demand an end to hunting. Especially since at the global level, the Asian black bear is classified as an endangered species.
Bear attacks on the rise
Except that in Japan, cohabitation with humans is going less and less well. As the country becomes depopulated, a large amount of agricultural land, which served as a buffer zone between the habitat of bears and that of humans, is gradually being abandoned by the inhabitants. The bears are not necessarily more numerous, but they walk there more easily. This brings them considerably closer to cities.
The number of incidents continues to increase: two dead and 158 injured in 2020. Five attacks in six months last year in Miyagi prefecture. The authorities would prefer to find a way to coexist with the “urban bears” but have no choice but to increase the quotas of animals that can be slaughtered, it is a matter of security.
According to the guidelines of the Ministry of the Environment, the annual number of bears that can be hunted must be limited to 12% of their estimated population. But Miyagi Prefecture raised that cap to 15% in April. In 2021, it counted 3,629 bears, more than double the 2014 figure. Distributors of fresh meat are just getting started.