Veganism, a growing awareness of biodiversity loss and an increase in consciousness around animal cruelty has meant that our image of hunting these days tends to be negative.
Considering the unnecessary cruelty involved in trophy hunting, shark finning and poaching, often, this reaction seems justified. Humans have a proven track record of adopting harmful hunting practices and being vastly inconsiderate towards wildlife.
In a more recent example of hunting sparking controversy, a vending machine selling fresh bear meat appeared in Akita, northern Japan – making appearances in news sources across the world.
“This feels like another low blow for wildlife,” World Animal Protection’s Nick Stewart told the Guardian last year. “This is animal exploitation gone mad. Bears are wild animals, not a convenience food.”
The machine prices 250g of meat from locally-hunted black bears at 2,200 yen (AUD $23.15), marketing the produce as a local specialty and souvenir of the prefecture. It reportedly sells 10-15 packs a week (depending on the seasonal availability of bear meat) – probably thanks to its location at a major shinkansen (bullet train) station: a hotspot for tourists.
As it happens, bear hunting in Japan goes much deeper than the vending machine stint causing uproar. In fact, the practice used to be the main source of income and a way of life for Matagi people – whose sustainable mountain culture in Japan dates back centuries.
Unlike modern farming practices – which provide the meat most of us purchase in the supermarket, or mining – which gives us the gasoline we run our cars off, slaughtering bears was never just about making quick money from nature for Matagi.
Matagi have cultivated a spiritual relationship with the mountain, praying before entering and performing rituals of gratitude after a successful hunt and safe return. Bears are seen as a gift: treated with respect and hunted in a way that ensures a sustainable population for future generations.
Even the language used on the mountain is sacred, with permission and knowledge preserved in scrolls handed between genenerations.
Today, Matagi culture continues to exist in the deep mountain villages of northern Japan, including Semboku, where the bear meat vending machine is located. In this particular region, the strength of Matagi’s deep respect for bears has had a large influence on the way people see and treat them.
In step with the rest of Japan, an ageing population and urban migration presents significant challenges to the preservation of Matagi traditions. Now, the number of Matagi alive are estimated to be just 200 odd people. Most of them no longer have the fitness to climb the steep slopes on which bears are traditionally hunted, nor are able to pass eyesight and other tests to renew their hunting license.
Additionally, modern conservation laws have restricted bear hunting to the point that traditional hunts can now only be carried out in a few areas. Hunting bears is mostly seen as a form of animal control for the local community – ameliorating the increase in bear-human conflicts in rural parts of the country that have arisen due to food shortages in the mountains.
According to the outcry from those outside of Japan, bear hunting being severely restricted and ultimately dying out is a good thing – a sentiment that appears to be based on two reasons.
The first echoes outcry around modern whaling: large mammals like bears are intelligent creatures, and possess many characteristics we consider similar to our own.
But why is it we only care for species we deem similar to us, or find cute, impressive or charming?
Among conservationists, it’s a known problem that the species most alluring to humans always get the most funding, leaving “ugly”, “creepy” or “boring” species struggling for assistance.
This can be illustrated when we compare the kākāpō – a plump, green and flightless parrot; with the fairy tern – a small and rather average-looking seabird in Aotearoa/New Zealand.
In 1995, kākāpō numbers were down to just 57, but these days – though they’re still endangered – their population currently stand at 248 individuals, largely thanks to getting perhaps the highest amounts of funding of all species in the country.
On the other hand, fairy terns are in a much graver plight, with a mere 40 birds remaining. Yet somehow, kākāpō and even more common birds are still more likely to win the our Bird of the Year contest, in which citizens vote for their favourite bird to raise awareness for its conservation.
If the point is to conserve biodiversity and prevent extinction, focusing on attractive or so-called intelligent species doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. What’s more, considering animals similar to us is humancentric. When did we remove ourselves from the food chain and start to consider ourselves separately from other animals?
While we may be the most peculiar animal on the planet with our technology and cultural quirks, that doesn’t change our biology or our reliance on nature for resources.
On the other hand, Matagi – whose hunting represents an active participation in the ecosystem many of us have forgotten our place in – maintain a greater understanding of how to live sustainably and in balance with nature in a way that treats all parts of the ecosystem as equally important.
Another reason bear hunting and the vending machine receive so much backlash is due to the “threatened” status of Asiatic black bears in the region.
At first glance, this seems fair enough – but Asiatic black bear conservation is not as simple as its endangered status, which foreign news sources fail to convey.
While on a global level, Asiatic black bears are vulnerable to extinction, populations in the Tohoku region, where bear meat is sold and hunting is allowed, are not currently considered under threat. In fact, due to the progression of rural depopulation in Japan – which has seen more villages abandoned and returned to nature’s realm – bears’ habitats are actually expanding.
In Akita where the vending machine is located, a 2020 survey estimated 4,400 bears across an area of 11,640 km². That’s 0.4 bears per square kilometre.
As an unsurprising result, rather than the problem of bears being a rarity, they are a common sight, and problems such as agricultural damage, attacks and even sightings in residential areas are widespread.
In an attempt to control these damages and protect human safety, a set number of bears are allowed to be hunted every year, with Matagi hunting making up a mere fraction of this.
Of course, hunting alone isn’t a great conservation strategy, and should be used only in cases where countermeasures such as electric fences prove ineffective. While such countermeasures are currently spreading, a lot of work remains to be done.
On that note, the majority of current hunting is done via traps set around residential areas due to lack of fit, experienced gun-hunters like the Matagi. However, in comparison to traps, Matagi gun-hunting plays a role conservation-wise, as bears that aren’t successfully shot remember the sound of gunfire and learn to fear humans. This in turn results in them avoiding humans and human areas, reducing the risk both of attack and agricultural damage.
In fact, attacks are almost non-existent in areas where Matagi are active, despite a very low Matagi population.
With less conflict between bears and humans in certain areas, we can also expect that bear populations here will remain stable and healthy. This is in stark comparison to areas where traps are set to prevent attacks.
This could be an indicator that, rather than being detrimental to bear conservation, conserving Matagi hunting culture – even in small numbers – could in fact be one of the keys to preserving a healthy bear population.
However, hunting takes large amounts of time, money and human resources. With Matagi being rarer than bears themselves, and with only a portion of them still actively hunting – combined with depopulation and the fact that Akita is one of the poorest prefectures in Japan – establishing effective conservation measures is particularly challenging.
In this context, a bear meat vending machine at a major tourist station should be viewed not as a problem, but rather as a possibility to fund sustainable bear hunting. If income can be generated from hunting bears in a way that also scares and keeps them away from human areas, and the culture of appreciating bear meat as a gift from the mountain can be passed on, we may in fact get one step closer to human-bear co-existence.
So, before making a judgement about a practice in a foreign country we know next to nothing about, how about researching local sources or speaking to local people?
And if we’re going to protest against hunting, let’s do it because of inhumane methods rather than simply because we feel an affinity for the species of animal being targeted. Finally, let’s not forget that hunting can be far more sustainable and kind to animals than modern farming methods.
If we can redirect our criticism to where it really belongs, and consider unfamiliar ideas in a contextual, culturally-relative way, perhaps that’s when we will finally begin carving the path to a sustainable future.