A town in Japan’s northernmost prefecture of Hokkaido has begun installing high-performance cameras to detect the appearance of brown bears nearly in real time.
A newspaper delivery man was killed by a brown bear in Fukushima Town on July 12.
That bear was shot dead, but brown bears have often been seen rummaging through garbage in residential areas.
The town installed 11 surveillance cameras after the man’s death.
On Wednesday, workers began setting up five high-performance cameras with cooperation from a major telecom firm.
Two of the cameras were set under a bridge in the Hikura district, where a brown bear was caught in a trap earlier on Wednesday. The district is adjacent to where the fatal attack occurred.
The new cameras can film at night using infrared. They can detect moving objects at a distance of up to about 25 meters, and send the images by email almost in real time to town officials.
Fukushima Town officials say they will be able to keep residents safe by detecting bears early, and quickly notifying hunters.
AloJapan.com