Robot Wolves:Japan's solution against bears invading villages – The video

In Takkikawa, the authorities' initiative averted plantigrade incursions and avoided accidents

Walking through the rural areas of Takkikawa, a Japanese town of 40 thousand inhabitants on the island of Hokkaido, you might come across large animals guarding the fields.Huge wolves, apparently, that howl and growl to chase away the bears that in recent years have moved further and further towards the town, scaring the inhabitants and in some cases going so far as to attack them.They are not real animals, but robots with a vaguely disturbing appearance.According to a report released in September by the Japanese Ministry of the Environment, during 2023, from April to July alone, there were 54 attacks on humans by bears, resulting in one death, on the island of Hokkaido.

In Trentino as in Japan?

But not in Takkikawa, where the system, in operation since 2020, has significantly reduced sightings of plantigrades, which are not accustomed to the sight of wolves, since the canids became extinct over a century ago due to excessive hunting.Who knows, perhaps the idea might be useful to the Trentino administration, which has long been committed to dealing with the increasingly frequent incursions of bears which have proven to be dangerous for the inhabitants, as in the case of the runner Andrea Papi who lost his life last April.At the moment, excluding the captivity and culling, no other proposals for solving the problem appear to have emerged.