Boffins have created AI-powered bear facial recognition technology in a bid to tackle a bear attack crisis. Between just April and July this year alone, 55 maulings and three deaths were reported in Japan, as well as thousands of sightings.
The fearsome creatures have been causing bedlam everywhere, from school playgrounds to golf courses to airport landing strips. Last year the numbers were even worse, with 219 attacks and six deaths between March and December 2024, the highest figures in the country's recorded history.
Tech experts from Daiwa Tshushin have now created an AI bear facial recognition system which they hope will help solve the problem.
They used more than 50,000 photos and videos of native black and brown bears to create the gadget, which is a spin on the Ring Doorbell model. They will offer to install discreet security cameras around people's homes which will then ping live footage to its "Face Bear" server and set off anti-bears sirens and phone-app alerts if one of the marauding mammals is detected.
There are two native species of bear in Japan, the Japanese black bear and the Ussuri brown bear. The black bears are smaller and generally more docile. But the brown bears, whose populations have increased over the last few years, are much larger and can stand at almost three-metres tall, weighing nearly 400kg. They are also historically more violent.
In Russia, brown bears have been known to hunt and eat apex predator the Siberian Tiger. In the small Japanese village of Tomamae, one monster specimen terrorised the village for six days over the winter of 1915, killing six residents before being stopped in its path. The species is also revered by northern Japan's native Ainu people, who drink its blood and eat its flesh as part of a ceremonial rite.
Experts believe the bears are being pushed into residential areas in Japan to look for food as climate change causes supplies of their natural nosh - including berries, nuts, and salmon - to dwindle.
A recent attack even took place in a supermarket, where a hungry bear pillaged the meat aisle and assaulted an attendant who luckily survived. Meanwhile, declining populations in rural regions are making containment and control much harder.
Japan has searched high and low for possible answers to this curious curse. Restrictions on shooting the mammals have been lifted and sensor-equipped electric fences have been installed.
An electric railway company has even branched into the territory by creating a dating app-style service that matches professional hunters with foresters facing bear-related woes. But so far, nothing seems to stick.
And over the last year - and despite its newest invention - Daiwa Tshushin has seen its stock fall a reported 27%.