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© KYODOWild boar bites off woman's finger
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Yubaru
Any where were the "hunters" with their weapons? Not to mention the police.
I can understand having to kill the animal, but it is just doing what it does out of instinct to survive, no need to make it suffer!
kurisupisu
Why wasn’t the animal tranquilized and returned to the wild?
jcapan
I live and work in this area and the boars have always been more of a nuisance than a menace (i.e. attacks are rare). But it certainly blew my mind when I was walking about an affluent district in a city of 1.5 million and saw a family of wild boars roaming its streets in broad daylight. Especially odd considering how little fauna remains in the Rokko Mtns. I hike up there at least a few times a month and come across them all the time. They usually leave you be but you better know their range before whipping out the bento box.
Britlover
Capture and release. No need to go full Mac Eliot on the animal.
bass4funk
I hunted boars twice back in the States and I can tell you, your adrenaline goes way up. Smart, extremely fast, cunning, no fear and vicious! They will be on you before you can blink. Razor sharp teeth and a very bad temper. There are so many of them, shooting them and eating them helps to control the population, they are a dangerous menace and killing a bunch is exactly the right thing to do, if you have a garden, they will totally destroy it, you can’t really relocate them, they have an impeccable sense of smell, acute hearing, they will always venture down where humans are in order to get food and they know humans have an abundance of it.
Maria
Let's think about this for a second:
Is that how members of a hunting club kill their prey? As slowly and painfully as possible? I bet they loved that. I bet they chortled afterwards.
Meanwhile the female boar - pregnant? a mother? - was looking for food, and attacked out of fear and not fun.
GW
What the...…..you cant make up this nonsense!! Clearly they needed a GUN to do one of two things:
Stand back take a shot to put the animal down, choices are normal bullet(not a shotgun please!!) or tranquilizer!
Mobbing the animal with knives, sound like a bunch of fools, savages
Why on earth these kinds of communities are NOT better prepared for wild animals is beyond me, it AINT rocket science!
bass4funk
Apparently, you never had an encounter with a wild an aggressive boar. Sorry, I don’t blame these people, you can prepare as much as you want, but boars don’t behave in the manner we would like. Again, if the animal comes to close to humans, if it’s possible, relocate it, if not, kill it and if possible, consume it, better for the people and the boar population.
hooktrunk2
I wonder if the use of batons and knives had something to do with the boar being cornered in a residential area and near a school.
Tiff Lee
They also handle catching strange people near elementary schools with that long fork-like pinning tool and batons. It’s not really a gun society.
jcapan
Which none of us are sad about . However, while I don't know the rules of engagement for dealing with a pissed off boar, I doubt if Eagles lyrics are the way to go:
As mentioned upstream, maybe a tranquilizer gun, even though I imagine a sergeant getting shot in the buttocks and keystone follies ensuing. But it still sounds better than the live slaughter of a squealing pig right next to a school. How gauche.
minello7
"A wild boar bit off an elderly woman's finger Tuesday in the city of Ashiya before being killed by police officers and local hunters, police said" this is how english is sometime confusing for one who has not had his morning coffee. Who was killed the elderly woman or the boar. It's ok, I did read the rest of the article.
Do the hustle
Wow! I can just imagine this frenzied scene. No animal deserves to be beaten and stabbed to in a mob frenzy.
Wild boars are a big problem in Japan. A problem that is being ignored by local and federal governments. In some areas they distroy up to 50% of crops. They need professional boar hunters to start culling them. Not, these 70+ year olds with gun licenses and a hobby. They tend to kill more people than game. I saw a family of boars running along the beach near Onjuku in Chiba a few months ago and have seen many running across the roads near Mobara in Chiba.
bearandrodent
Yeah, let’s catch and release it so they’ll do it again.
Kuro
it's a boar, not a human serial killer... she wasn't looking for blood... just bite off anything in a plastic bad, she knows that's where the food is.
boars are not pregnant in december.
These wild boars are not attacking human viciously... they are just hunting for plastic bags full of food... if you live there you know it and you avoid carring a plastic bad. And everybody lives happy ever after.
nandakandamanda
Watch this video of a boar attacking a man in the street in Fukuoka last month. How do you stop a boar that attacks humans?
https://breaking-news.jp/2018/11/06/045023
stormcrow
One of my students who lives just outside of the city limits here in Japan told me that he sees wild pigs weekly between his house and school. He also told me that they're so comfortable within the residential areas that they can be seen sleeping in the neighborhood without any fear of humans. Of course they can't be shot or trapped in the neighborhood, so maybe the wild pigs know this. He also said that the few hunters there are in the area can't kill them fast enough. Luckily, there haven't been any attacks (yet).
Goodlucktoyou
Just kill all animals, cut down all trees and cover all japan in concrete. And kill all the noisy birds too. And insects. Problem solved.
I have a big net for catching the snakes on my land, and take then to the mountain, alive. My neighbours have fences to stop bears, deers and boars eating their crops.
i worry about a 78yr old hunter shooting me or my little boy as we go hiking.
nandakandamanda
Since speed is of the essence, in a land where guns are probably not permitted in residential areas, every town with a boar problem should have a telephone number on telephone poles showing where to call for a vet with an anaesthetic dart gun.
While waiting, I guess local folk will rush forward to corner the boar with netting, poles, knives, tasers, ie whatever comes to hand. Villagers probably used spears in times past.
I was assured here by one hunter that a boar killed with a bullet tastes bad because of the adrenaline released into the bloodstream. With a lovingly-placed blade, however, this does not happen, he said.
There, answered my own question above, "how do you stop a boar that attacks humans?" (Better than just giving a minus point, I reckon!)
cleo
Leaving aside the fact that this was not a hunting-for-the-table expedition, I fail to see how stabbing it with knives and striking it with police batons and other weapons would not release a fair bit of adrenaline into the bloodstream.
Hunters will assure sceptics of whatever comes to mind to justify their sick habit. There is nothing loving about killing an animal with thoughts of putting it on your plate. You don't eat the ones you love.
spaghettiplease
Why can't man and nature live harmoniously? Will someone please think of the children!
Kuro
But this was in Ashiya... they probably came chasing the wild boar with their Lamborghini and Hummer...
bass4funk
As a hunter I disagree and I have no love lost for any wild boar. I believe in conservation and helping contain getting a good amount is a good thing. If I could get a license in Japan to hunt boar or deer I would in a minute. But like I said, these animals are extremely dangerous and I don’t underestimate them one bit, no one should.
Do the hustle
Its not a feral pig. It’s a wild boar native to Asia. A feral animal is a domestic animal that has gone wild.
kohakuebisu
nandakandamanda
Impressive video. The boar fully charges the guy and then repeatedly goes at him, apparently for his bag. The guy simply walked across the animal's line of sight and did not threaten it in any way.
We back onto woodland and get nightly visits that leave holes in the garden. I've only seen boars a few times in ten years. I see tanuki much more often. That inoshishi in the video is very violent, much so than I ever imagined for a Japanese boar, not the ones overseas. It makes me a bit worried for my kids.
Toasted Heretic
No thanks. If hunting must be done, leave it to the (Japanese) professionals, not gun loving wild bores.
RIP to the boar.
stormcrow
First of all, I'm all in favor of Japan's strict gun control laws.
However, one fertile female wild pig can produce a group of something like 10 piglets. Of those female piglets, they'll each be ready to breed within a year. If you do the math and consider that wild pigs don't have any natural predators to contend with, well, you can see that a wild pig population out of control is a serious problem.
As for the hunters, they understand the consequences if they shoot somebody by mistake. Has it ever happened in Japan? I can't recall reading or hearing about hunters in Japan shooting people by mistake.
Frankly, I'm more worried about children coming into contact with nasty pests than letting their numbers soar.
Also, the people who live in these rural areas where the wild pigs roam about the towns freely are happy to see the hunters dragging in dead boars from the nearby woods. They're happy to see one less boar to worry about which may encounter their kids as they walk to and from school.
Vince Black
Japan should allow for sport hunting of wild boars in these areas at designated times of course. Graphite Hunting bows or light reflex crossbows would be best as they're silent.
BeerDeliveryGuy
Read Theodore Roosevelt’s Hunting the Grizzly Bear, he describes wild boar as more dangerous game than wolves and puma.
BeerDeliveryGuy
Japan does allow “sport hunting” of boar. The open season varies by jurisdiction, but generally the winter months are open season for wild boar, with no bag limits, and sometimes even a bounty (usually 8-20,000yen).
The reason this is not popular is a general lack of interest among the younger population, who lack the time and live too far from rural areas. Difficulty in obtaining firearms permits, and the hunting/firearms permit exams being held on weekdays only. There are also strict zoning laws on where firearms can be discharged.
As of now, bows, crossbows, and bolt guns are considered “sporting projectile tools” and are banned for being used in hunting.
If you have a hunting permit, but no firearms permit; you are limited to the use of Spears, knives, traps, thrown objects (projectiles that are not launched from a mechanical device) and your bare hands.
CruisinJapan
Wild boars are a threat to human safety in mountain communities, and boars are hunted and trapped daily to keep residents safe from attacks. They're not like deer, they don't run away from humans. I encounter boar almost monthly, and I keep my distance when I hear them coming.
This isn't Narnia where all animals are just like humans and can be bargained with.
Ashiya is a wealthy neighborhood with many schools just outside of Kobe where houses back up against the forests of Mt. Rokko.
Not killing the boar could result in more people (not to mention school children) being put at risk.
Sometimes you have to use the tools available in an emergency, and tranquilizing boars is not the protocol for hunters; they kill boars.
Go ahead and feel bad for the way boar was killed, but these people did what they needed to protect the community.
Kuro