Japan is planning to hire bear hunters after a record number of fatal attacks.
Warning: This article contains a description of injuries caused by bear attacks.
Since April, 12 people have been killed in bear attacks — four times the total number of people killed last year.
Several men in their 70s have been killed by bears, including one who Japanese broadcaster TV Iwate reported had his head separated from his torso.
Injuries from bear attacks have also almost doubled, including more than 100 people who have been left with deep gashes and bites from bear attacks.
This year's figures show the largest number of fatal bear attacks since records began in 2006.
Measures to protect the population are now being discussed by Japan's cabinet.
"An increasing number of bears have been entering residential areas in many regions this year … leading to a rise in the number of casualties, with more diversity in the extent of damage and across a wider area," chief cabinet secretary Minoru Kihara said on Thursday, according to The Japan Post.
"This is a serious situation that threatens the safety and security of the public."
As part of its response, the government will "hire more government hunters and other people who can aid in the response," environment minister Hirotaka Ishihara said.
The government was also looking at changing firearms laws to allow police officers to shoot bears that enter residential areas.
Earlier in the week, the governor of Akita Prefecture, a mountainous area in the north-west of Japan's main island of Honshu, said he would ask the military to help cull bears.
"Exhaustion on the ground is reaching its limit," Akita governor Kenta Suzuki said.
As attacks have continued to rise over past years, Japan has tried a range of ways to deter bears from wandering into neighbourhoods.
One small rural town even set up robot wolves to keep out bears.
Bears looking for food
As the population decreases in rural Japan and bear numbers rise, people are coming into contact with them more frequently.
The bears are drawn to towns and villages due to a shortage of food, such as acorns.
Hungry bears have been entering homes, and on at least two occasions, supermarkets.
In mid-October, about 30 people were in a shop in the Gunma region, north of Tokyo, when a 1.4-metre adult bear entered.
It became agitated as it tried to find a way out, injuring two men and damaging part of the supermarket.
Japan's ageing population means it has too few qualified hunters to track down bears, which appear less fearful of humans than in the past.
In Akita this year, there have been about 8,000 reported bear sightings, about six times the number seen last year.
Some estimates put Japan's black bear population at around 44,000, three times the number estimated in 2012.
Black bears live across much of the country and can weigh up to 140kg.
On the northern island of Hokkaido, the population of the bigger and more aggressive brown bears, which can weigh up to 400kg, is estimated at up to 12,000.
Bear populations have bounced back since they were extensively hunted in the past.
In the 1980s, bears in some parts of Japan were at risk of extinction, and on the southern island of Kyushu the last bear was spotted in 1987.
ABC/Reuters
