https://www.japantimes.co.jp/n...pests-drones-robots/


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With wildlife pests on the rise, Japan turns to novel countermeasures


BY ALEX K.T. MARTIN
STAFF WRITER

Dec 26, 2022


The idea of defending his homeland inspired Teruo Shimomoto to join the Self-Defense Forces as a young man. Now retired, the former officer has swapped military fatigues for a hunting vest in order to take on a different type of mission: protecting his community from the threat of invasive wildlife.

“I’ve been the head of a neighborhood organization in the district I live in, and whenever we have gatherings the conversation turns toward problems caused by wild animals,” says the sprightly septuagenarian from Fukuchiyama, a midsize city north of Kyoto known for its plentiful nature and landmark castle.

“So I acquired a hunting license and joined the local hunting association to do something about it.”

That conventional approach, however, is being pushed to its limits by a booming population of voracious herbivores and omnivores such as deer, wild boar, macaques and bears. In order to help curtail the widespread agricultural and environmental destruction inflicted by these animals, novel devices — ranging from drones to robots — are being enlisted to fend them off.

Last year, Fukuchiyama saw just over a 30% increase in damages to crops and orchards from wild animals compared with the year before, according to Shogo Oda, a city official in charge of farming and forestry promotion. Wild boar and deer were the primary culprits, he says.

Meanwhile, there are frequent sightings of black bears in the city, with over 110 having been spotted as of Dec. 14. They can be dangerous, too. In November last year, a man in his 60s in the nearby city of Kyotango was hospitalized after being mauled by one hiding in a persimmon tree.


From Hokkaido to Okinawa Prefecture, reports of wild animals encroaching on populated areas and devastating crops and other natural resources abound, with some instances resulting in physical confrontations leading to human injuries and even deaths. Nationally, the impact of these pests on agricultural produce has hovered at around ¥16 billion (about $120.5 million) in recent years, with the ongoing human-wildlife conflict eroding regional ecosystems and exhausting farmers.

While the situation is a direct result of sweeping, human-made environmental changes that befell the archipelago over the past century, local governments and communities are nevertheless scrambling to find ways to tackle the issue amid accelerating rural depopulation and a lack of hunters in an aging society that has some of the developed world’s strictest gun laws.

Hunting drones

From the leafy suburbs of Fukuchiyama, Iori Shimura runs a drone school and an agricultural drone production firm called Aero Japan. It’s a promising sector to be in, with demand soaring for the unmanned aerial vehicles and the expanding array of services they can provide — some even veering toward rather unusual assignments.

Several years ago, Shimura was approached by Shimomoto, who was training to obtain a drone license at his school.

“He asked me whether it was possible to attach speakers to the drones and have them play barking sounds of hunting dogs,” Shimura says.

As the leader of Fukuchiyama’s 129-member hunting association, Shimomoto organizes deer and wild boar hunts to help curb the thriving pest population. While boar are known crop-raiders, deer also strip bark off trees and devour shrubbery and fallen leaves, leaving less food for other species and impacting plant growth and diversity.

Hounds would be dispatched to track down and drive these creatures toward strategic locations where hunters would be stationed with shotguns, but there were issues with safety and efficacy. The dogs would often wander into other people’s properties, and couldn’t tolerate the summer heat for long.

“I heard around two expeditions would be the limit for a day out hunting with dogs,” Shimura says.


And as is the case elsewhere, Fukuchiyama’s hunters are getting old. After peaking at 518,000 in 1975, the total number of licenced hunters in Japan plunged before leveling off at around 200,000 in recent years. Around 60% are people over 60 years old, however, raising concerns that many elderly hunters will soon be retiring their guns.

And unlike in the United States, acquiring firearms in Japan is no easy feat. Applicants need to pass several tests and undergo a police background check before being granted the ability to purchase shotguns and airguns — but no handguns.

It was under these circumstances that Shimomoto, 74, was looking for an alternative method that wouldn’t be as time consuming and physically demanding for his hunters. Enter the drones.

“We experimented with various types of barking sounds collected from different situations,” Shimomoto says. “It was also essential to carefully tweak the volume and direction of the speaker and to find the right altitude and speed to operate the drones.”

The device also has the inherent advantage of reaching wider areas, enabling it to scare and drive out multiple animals at a time, he adds, while cutting down the amount of time spent on hunting expeditions.

Results from two years of drone-hunting have been promising, with around 100 deer and boar captured through the method so far. Organizations from several prefectures have already ordered the ¥1.5 million gadgets, which are also equipped with a mechanism to shoot fireworks. Earlier this month, Wakayama Prefecture’s hunting association visited Fukuchiyama to observe how these drones were used, and promptly decided to introduce them in their hunts.

“I think this new method will spread nationwide,” Shimomoto says.

Changing habitats

Japan wasn’t always teeming with wild animals. In fact, many of these species were on the verge of extinction by the early 20th century as the nation’s hunger for natural resources amid its rapid modernization demolished their habitats. Coal and copper mine projects destroyed mountains, while forests were razed for lumber and charcoal. A flourishing pelt market saw animals fervently hunted down.

“By the early Showa Era (1926-1989), most wild animals were nearly extinct and there were ‘bald’ mountains everywhere,” says Mayumi Yokoyama, a professor at the University of Hyogo and research director of Hyogo Prefecture’s Wildlife Management Research Center.

It was only after World War II that legal protections began to be established, a period that also saw Japan embark on a nationwide reforestation campaign in an effort to rebuild the country’s wood stocks.

Such measures saw the population of wild animals recover, initially unbeknownst to their human predators.


According to the Environment Ministry, the distribution range of deer and wild boar grew by 2.7 times and 1.9 times, respectively, between 1978 and 2018. Meanwhile their populations are now each estimated at around 2.6 million and 800,000.

“In the 1980s, we started seeing cases of deer suddenly appearing in farms and causing damage,” Yokoyama says. “But since these animals were banned from being hunted or captured according to regulations, there wasn’t much people could do about them.”

In 1999, the wildlife protection and hunting law underwent a major revision and Japan’s first wildlife management system was introduced, aimed at conserving biodiversity and controlling pest damage. Prefectures could now stipulate their own plans based on data and expert opinions.

Finding the right balance in animal populations is essential for wildlife management and conservation, Yokoyama says, something that requires population density estimates. Her university has conducted one for Fukuchiyama’s deer population, for example, but she says not all municipalities have invested in the research necessary to formulate successful pest control programs.

But while attempts have been made in Europe and elsewhere to turn over areas of land to wild animals — a process known as “rewilding” — Japan is still very much focused on suppressing the creatures.

Animal repellents

Kazuaki Kikuchi oversees an organic pineapple farm on Ishigaki Island in Okinawa Prefecture, harvesting around 2 tons of the tropical fruit every season. But in recent years, wild boar have been getting through the electrified fences surrounding the property, ruining around 20% of the produce and inflicting serious financial damage.

In 2019, Kikuchi decided to purchase a Monster Wolf, a motion-sensitive, canine-shaped robot with flashing red eyes that can make dozens of barking, howling and gunshot sounds to scare away pests. He set one up on the edge of the farm that July, along with two other similar devices without the wolf look, and almost immediately the boar disappeared.

“It seemed to work, so we’ve since been using them every season,” he says.


Wild boar are intelligent, powerful animals, however, and can quickly adapt to local conditions and overcome obstacles preventing them from accessing food. In order to enhance the gadget’s effectiveness, its producer, Ohta Seiki, is now working with carmaker Suzuki to create a four-wheeled, mobile version of the mechanical beast — called the Wolf Mover — that can patrol designated areas autonomously.

“From the onset of developing the Monster Wolf, we knew the device would be better at scaring away animals if it could move on its own,” says Shushi Sasaki, director of Wolf Kamuy, the company in charge of Monster Wolf’s sales and maintenance. “After it’s done patrolling, we want it to return to its station and charge itself, like a (robot vacuum cleaner).”

Meanwhile, wild hogs, and to a lesser extent deer, are known for possessing an excellent sense of smell, a trait entrepreneur Tomoyuki Tsuruga has used to his advantage in creating an odor repellent using liquid waste from biomass energy production.

“I was initially tasked to create pest-repellants for NEXCO West to protect roadside lawns and greenery from being devoured by deer,” he says, referring to highway operator West Nippon Expressway Company.

“Through my research, I discovered that wild animals dislike burnt smells, like those from forest fires,” Tsuruga says. “I traveled all over Japan looking for an environmentally friendly substance that emits that type of scent, and happened upon a biomass energy production facility that had liquid waste with an awful smell — perfect for my purpose.”

Now, Tsuruga sells the dark liquid in 500 milliliter bottles for ¥3,300 each under the brand Guardest Pro.


These new products, however, often need to be combined with more traditional methods to be useful. According to the University of Hyogo’s Yokoyama, the best line of defense is fencing off property, especially with electrified wires, while cutting shrubbery to improve visibility and reducing food scraps can help keep animals away.

“The idea is to make them feel scared and uncomfortable when approaching certain areas,” she says.

She offers a word of caution about the proliferation of new gadgets and technologies marketed as an effective means to ridding and repelling wild animals.

“These devices could be helpful in assisting human efforts, but it’s important to remember they won’t offer a permanent solution in themselves.”

Indeed, the task of keeping the wildlife population in check ultimately is in the hands of humans. Unfortunately for the nation’s animal-lovers, that means culling.

In Fukuchiyama, over 5,000 deer were killed during the fiscal year through March as part of the city’s year-round pest control program, significantly more than the 4,500 it had targeted. Meanwhile, only around 840 wild boar were captured, likely due to the spread of classical swine fever (CSF), a highly contagious and often fatal disease.

On a recent morning in mid-December, Shimomoto, the retired SDF captain, was busy in the forests distributing oral bait vaccines for CSF in an effort to keep the disease from spiraling out of control.

His days as a military officer have passed, but there’s still much to be done in nature’s shifting ecological battlefield, and recruiting the younger generation to the cause is crucial.

“I think we’re doing a good job capturing these beasts,” he says. “But hunting in the mountains can be taxing for older people. We’d like to see more younger folks join our mission.”

The wolf robot would scare the crap out of me, then I'd shoot it.

quote:

The wolf robot would scare the crap out of me, then I'd shoot it.

I watched a pretty good documentary out of japan on this very thing not too long ago.

they have all sorts of problems just like the article describes.
the main one they have is hunting in the mountains while all the game is down in the valley doing the crop damage.

hunter success is worse than it is here,,, which is saying something.