A lot of Unseen Japan commenters were sad when we wrote about how Akita City had exterminated a bear that camped out in a local supermarket for over two days. A number of people in Japan are also upset and have flooded the city and prefecture with complaints.
However, the governor of Akita Prefecture dismissed the complaints – and said he has a funny way of shutting them down.
The invasion occurred on November 30th when the bear entered an Itoku supermarket in Akita City. It injured one employee, who later recovered.
Authorities struggled to lure it into a bear trap for days. They eventually succeeded in capturing and killing it.
The incident has brought increased attention to the encroachment of wild animals on urban centers in Japan. The country’s population decline, plus a population shift from rural areas to major urban centers, has led to animals having more room to roam. There are also more wild animals overall, as Japan’s hunting population dwindles with older hunters aging and passing away.
The bear’s death resulted in over 100 complaint calls and emails aimed at Akita City from across the country. However, at a special budgetary session of the Prefectural Assembly, Governor Satake Norihisa told legislators, “There’s no reason to spend time on people who don’t know what they’re talking about.”
When asked how the city and prefecture should respond to such complaints, Satake had an…innovative solutions.
“If I got a complaint, I’d absolutely threaten the other party. ‘Give me your address so I can send the bear to your place.’ They’d hang up after that.”
The gov also had some other…innovative ideas about taking care of the bear population. They include dropping heavy objects on them using drones and putting explosives in food that would then excplode in the bears’ stomachs.
The prefecture says it’s received 56 comments about the bear between the day of the event and December 12th. Of those, 24 were opinions about the decision to exterminate.
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