Japan is struggling over how to dispose of bear carcasses, as the number of control cases in which bears appearing across the country are shot and retrieved is nearing a record high.
On Dec. 4, Japan's NHK, citing an Environment Ministry announcement, said 5,983 bears were controlled over the six months from April to September, already surpassing the full-year total of 5,136 last year.
The Environment Ministry said the surge in bear control cases appears to be due to bears frequently appearing in residential areas amid recent food shortages and population growth.
The sharp increase in bear control cases has also made carcass disposal a challenge, as a shortage of personnel with disassembly skills has left piling bear remains not processed in time.
Typically, bear bones and meat are finely cut into pieces 10 cm or smaller, divided into designated bags, and disposed of as household general incineration waste, a process said to take 2 to 3 hours per animal.
Some regions are reportedly reviewing new disposal methods, such as introducing chemical treatment. There are also calls to use the carcasses for food.
Japan already has restaurants that serve bear meat, but under current legal standards, carcasses of controlled bears are banned from being used for food.
Mitsushita Shiro, head of a Hokkaido branch of a hunters association, told NHK, "There were days when we hunted bears almost every day, but there were times when the disassembly work could not keep up."