TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Japan’s cabinet approved a bill Friday allowing hunters to shoot bears in populated areas at their own discretion after human encounters with the wild animals hit record levels.

Across the country, 219 people were attacked by bears in 12 months to April 2024, with six human fatalities — the highest since statistics began nearly two decades ago.

Climate change affecting bear food sources and hibernation times, along with depopulation caused by an ageing society, are causing the animals to venture into towns more frequently.

The revised wildlife protection and management law allows “emergency shootings” following complaints that hunters were hampered by red tape.

The environment ministry hopes to present the bill to parliament in the coming months and get it enacted before autumn, when bear sightings typically surge, an environment ministry official told Agence France- Presse, declining to be named.

Currently, shooting animals such as bears or wild boar in residential areas is forbidden.

Even when bears hole themselves up in populated areas, hunters are not allowed to shoot without being given the green light by police.

Even then, police “can only issue such a command in an extremely dire situation, such as when a person is seconds away from being attacked,” the ministry official said.

Under current rules, “you’d have to wait until someone is actually in danger to get police approval,” he said.

More than 9,000 bears were killed in Japan in the 12 months leading to April 2024.