Yoshikazu Sato is the latest temporary addition to INA. He is an assistant professor at Nihon University in Japan, where he is doing research on bears. He will be in Norway until august 2010 to learn from the Scandinavian Bear Project.
Assistant professor Yoshikazu Sato, University of Hokkaido, Japan.
Photo: Cathrine Glosli
Yoshikazu’s research is centered around the Ussuri brown bear (Ursus arctos yesoensis) on the island of Hokkaido (link to map of Japan, external page). He focuses on human-bear conflicts and Japanese management regimes. Hokkaido has a bear population around 3 000 individuals. Japan: high conflict levels – In Scandinavia, the bear population has been severely reduced, and is now recovering again. In Japan, our bear population has not faced the same bottleneck effect as your population has. But the habitat areas are reduced and the population is more fragmented than it used to.
– In Japan, conflicts with bears are considered a local problem. As in Norway, the attitudes towards carnivores is more positive in cities than in rural areas, but unlike Norway, the biggest issue is crop depredation. Bears eat corn, sugar beets and rice, among other things, in addition to being intrusive. (article continues beneath the picture)
Photo: K. Yoneda
Young siblings on a sugar beets field, Hokkaido, Japan.
Need for research data
– On Hokkaido there is little scientific base for bear management, Yoshikazu says.
– There are limited resources, and there is need for a management plan. Right now I am doing my own poject in Urahoro, buidling on my PhD thesis. I wish to find the cause of the increase in human-bear conflicts. Right now, the wildlife management is just taking out problem individuals with no apparent long term success. A couple of years ago, 5 000 bears were taken out all over Japan in an effort to reduce conflicts.
– We don’t have enough data on bear ecology to pinpoint the reasons behind the increase in conflict levels. I wish to organise a large monitoring project, much like the Scandinavian Bear Project. Problems with timber harvest – For the bear population, timber harvesting is a big problem, Yoshikazu says. – The natural forests are replaced with plantations, reducing available bear habitat. During the last years, hunting pressure on bears has also decreased, adding to the increased conflict levels. In addition to bears, deer and forest birds, like capercaille, are popular game species in Japan, but the Japanese hunting traditions are disappearing. – The average age of Japanese hunters is close to 60, Yoshikazu explains. – Hunting is not attractive to young Japanese. It is considered old-fashioned.
Background Yoshikazu has his undergraduate degree from Hokkaido University, and his graduate degree from the University of Tokyo. His master thesis focused on the feeding habits of the Hokkaido brown bear. His PhD from 2002, also from the University of Tokyo, was titled “An ecological study on human-bear conflicts in Urahoro”.
Japan’s biggest university Yoshikazu is currently employed as an assistant professor at Nihon University, the largest university in Japan. The university itself has a budget of 2,380,952,380 US$ and consists of 14 colleges (faculties). It employs 7 780 people, and has currently approximately 81 100 students enrolled. Yoshiakzu works at the Nihon University College of Bioresource Science.
