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The story
On October 24, 2026, tvk (TV Kanagawa) reported that an Asian black bear had resurfaced near Kobo-yama Park in Hadano City. The bear was confirmed to be the same individual captured and released on the 20th of this month, and access roads to the park were closed off for safety. On 5ch’s Breaking News+ thread, posters piled on with doubts about whether “learned release” (conditioning captured bears to fear humans before setting them free) actually works, with many calling for a switch to culling, while others pushed back by invoking wildlife’s right to exist — turning the thread into a broader debate over release policy.
What people said
@tvknews930
[BREAKING] An Asian black bear has resurfaced near Kobo-yama Park in Hadano City. It's been confirmed as the same bear captured and released on the 20th of this month. Access roads to Kobo-yama Park (Mt. Asama, Mt. Gongen, Mt. Kobo) have been closed off as a safety precaution.
This never ends.
Apparently bears walk 10-20km a day through the mountains before hibernation, so releasing them isn't even meaningful unless it's somewhere truly remote.
Hadano's only 13km across east-west and north-south, so
they'd have to release it in another city.
Supposedly it only works in theory if it's released 100km from human settlements.
Re: #55
Apparently if you teach them humans are scary,
the next person they run into is more likely to get attacked out of nowhere.
There's only 80 of them.
If anything, running into one is lucky.
Kanagawa Prefectural Government) FY2026 Reports of Asian Black Bear Sightings in Kanagawa Prefecture
*As of 10/19, there have been 53 reports of sightings/tracks in mountainous areas near human settlements (including probable bear sightings)
https://www.pref.kanagawa.jp/documents/15077/kuma_r8_1019.pdf
If you're using Tokyo as your reference, the "protect them" approach just leads to overpopulation and more danger.
Wouldn't it be better to cull individual bears once they cross a line?
Seems like that would let humans and bears coexist better too.
Don't you think that peaceful situation is changing now?
They're not seriously feeding it or something, are they?
It's because it eats its fill of good food before getting caught.
(・(ｪ)・) "Next time I won't get caught."
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DuD6zLDVAAAnLyX.jpg
There are people overseas who keep bears or tigers as pets, but most of them get eaten within a few years.
https://imgur.com/L6rD0C5.jpeg
https://imgur.com/MYl1Hg9.jpeg
To be continued
https://imgur.com/hU4PAvT.jpeg
https://imgur.com/eXysHkS.jpeg
To be continued
Bear meat in season is genuinely delicious.
Bear paws and bear gallbladders
sell for shockingly high prices in places like China.
That's actually why bears have gone extinct in South Korea.
So why let it go?
It's basically a goldmine (´・ω・`)
Apparently the parasite risk is so bad that approval is difficult from a safety standpoint.
You'd probably need some kind of special license to handle it.
https://imgur.com/oSRbiZb.jpeg
https://imgur.com/Sc5m8vv.jpeg
To be continued
https://imgur.com/csbHna7.jpeg
The End
Though I doubt that does much either way.
Surely they're not releasing it based on some "if we just talk it out, it'll understand" logic, like believers in Article 9 (Japan's pacifist constitutional clause)?
Bear: "There's plenty of food in human villages, and if I get caught, they play with firecrackers with me."
Coming back in three days means
it's not like it was sprinting the whole way there.
There's no way they released it at a distance you could just walk back from easily.
But if it comes out that they moved it to another area, that'd cause a huge problem.
If there's nowhere in the prefecture it can't come back from, isn't culling the only option?
Release only makes sense if there's somewhere it genuinely can't return from.
It's the one where they condition it like "humans aren't scary~ we'll let you go properly~", right?
Overseas they release them hundreds of kilometers away, but that's not really possible in Japan, is it?
So you're saying that while enjoying an environment humans made comfortable for themselves by destroying nature because they couldn't endure nature's order, right?
It's their own fault for being too weak to hold onto it.
They should be grateful they've even got a little habitat left.
Humans could drive bears to extinction anytime they wanted to.
The place you're living in was taken from them too, you know.
Background and Key Points of This Debate
As of October 19 this year, there have been 53 reported sightings and traces of Asian black bears within Kanagawa Prefecture, with the prefecture estimating the local population at around 80 bears. The belief that “Kanagawa doesn’t have bears” remains widespread, but a certain number of sightings are reported every year on record. The practice of “learned release” — moving captured bears into the mountains away from human settlements and using firecrackers and other methods to condition them to fear people — aims to teach them to avoid humans, but since bears reportedly travel 10-20km a day, critics point out that it has little effect in a city like Hadano, whose area spans only about 13km east-west and north-south. The thread saw a clash between calls to switch to culling and arguments defending wild animals’ right to exist, feeding into a wider debate shaped by the nationwide rise in bear sightings near human settlements.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Breaking News+) thread “[Bear] Asian Black Bear Resurfaces in Hadano City… Confirmed Same Individual as the One Captured and Released“.
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