Bear Dogs Brought in to Deal with Ursine Intrusions in Karuizawa

Video footage taken on May 16 in Karuizawa, Nagano Prefecture, shows Tama, a Karelian bear dog, with her first litter of six pups born this spring. Introduced by a local non-profit organization, the dogs are being trained to serve as sentries against Asiatic black bears known to wander onto properties in the area known for its resorts and villas. Karelian bear dogs have traditionally been trained by Finnish and Russian hunters near their shared border to track down and corner bears for their masters. The batch of puppies at Karuizawa will receive about a year of training before being debuted as a solution to local bear intrusions. The video footage was taken by Hiroyuki Yamamoto of The Asahi Shimbun.