From today's English language Japan News [Yomiuri]:
Japan, with a glut of deer and wild boar predating farmlands, plans to liberalize hunting laws for wild animals. http://tinyurl.com/k5nwdvg

(Frankly, I wonder about Japan's growing attention to its regional national security issues and whether training a new generation of hunters might dovetail with other, unstated policies. IMO, not entirely a bad thing.)

Govt aims to halve deer, boars

The Yomiuri Shimbun
January 28, 2014
The Yomiuri Shimbun
The government has set a policy to relax regulations on hunting by revising a law aiming to halve the population of wild animals—mainly deer and boars—by fiscal 2023, as agricultural damage done by the wild animals has grown increasingly serious.

The government will soon revise the Wildlife Protection and Proper Hunting Law to make hunting easier.

According to estimates by the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry, damage by wild animals on agriculture in fiscal 2011 amounted to ¥22.6 billion.

Because capturing the animals has not been able to meet the increase of the animals, the government will change its policy, which has placed importance on protection of the animals. The government plans to allow minors to use traps into which wild animals are lured, and the hours per day that hunting is permitted will be extended.

Under the law revision, the government is considering lowering the minimum age of people allowed to do trap-hunting and other styles of hunting from the current 20 to around 18.

The government also plans to extend the hours of hunting—currently limited to between dawn and sundown—to 24 hours a day if the hunting activities are done by prefectural governments and other public entities to eliminate animals that damage property.

The Environment Ministry’s Central Environment Council will compile a report containing proposals of the changes by the end of this month, at the earliest, and the government will submit a bill to revise the law during the current Diet session.

According to the agricultural ministry, the value of farm products damaged by wild animals has been around ¥20 billion annually over the past 15 years or so, although land acreage used for agriculture has been declining.

The Environment Ministry estimates that in fiscal 2011, the population of wild deer was 2.61 million, excluding those in Hokkaido, and the population of boars was 880,000. They have caused a remarkable amount of damage, and their populations have been rising year by year.

Also in Hokkaido, the population of ezojika, a variety of deer in the region, in fiscal 2011 was estimated at 640,000, and its population has also been on the rise.

Deer have a strong reproductive instinct, and some animal experts predict the deer population will double within 10 years.

By the end of fiscal 2023, the government set the goal to halve the total population of deer and boars from about 4.1 million currently to about 2.1 million, and regards the law revision as the trump card for achieving that purpose.

A senior Environment Ministry official said: “We need to have ideas for not only protection, but also capture. This would help local governments, which have to spend large amounts of money on measures to combat damage-causing animals, such as setting up electric fences.”

Technology steps in

One factor behind the increase in animal populations could be the downtrend in the number of hunters, who are tantamount to wild animals’ “natural enemies.”

According to statistics compiled by the Environment Ministry, the number of licensed hunters in fiscal 1970—530,000—was more than halved to 190,000 in fiscal 2011 due to such factors as the aging of hunters.

“Given the diversification of people’s hobbies, the number of people regularly engaged in hunting has declined, and this is a factor” behind the rise in animal populations, said a ministry official in charge.

However, a new business is emerging on the horizon. Sohgo Security Services Co., commonly known as ALSOK (Always Security OK), launched a service last year that alerts farmers via mobile phones when traps set in agricultural fields are activated.

The major security firm developed the system after receiving requests from farmers to help them protect their fields. Upon detecting the activation of a trap, a message saying “trap activated” is sent by e-mail.

An association studying countermeasures to deal with boar damage in the Aikawa- Nashizawa district of Futtsu, Chiba Prefecture, uses the ALSOK monitoring system. Katsumi Hoshino of the association said: “Farmers with side jobs cannot continually watch their fields. We can capture [boars] efficiently thanks to the monitoring system.”

Dishes made from the meat of captured wild animals also enjoy popularity. JR Food Business in Tokyo offers curry and pasta dishes cooked from the meat of deer hunted in Nagano Prefecture at three shops, including a restaurant, located inside the facilities of JR Tokyo and Ueno stations.

let some farmers make some money by selling hunts to us US hunters

At least a step in the right direction. Domo for the link, Norm-san.