- A friend who lives there sent me this photo of a bear roaming an Aomori building from a few days ago. https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/society/general-news/2026051... (https://archive.ph/Z6llc https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/attachment/327729/)
- I know how this ends; with robot bears fighting off robot wolves whilst we cower underground.
- Why? Because farmers will buy robot bears to attack each other's farms?
- Are there any good robot animatronics for Halloween? I want a wendigo to walk around my yard.
- We have something close, but unfortunately not at the halloween decoration price point - https://www.satyress.com/
- Oh hey here's a terrifying robot. Let's give it GIANT FUCKING CHAINSAW HANDS.
- I’m going to make this guy skulk around and scare the children https://mangdang.store/products/mp2
- You could put a chainsaw in the front and get a robot Pochita! [0]
- Hmm, maybe a low-buoyancy floater is better? Helium and a quadcopter.
- I'm looking at the "air reservoirs" in the chest and body that you can apparently fucking shoot or stab to force an E-stop.
They literally say you (could) shoot the thing as an actual emergency stop to brake all the actuators.
Wild.
- Otacon: To stop the unit, you have to access the control panel on its back and manually input the override code—
Snake: No time! I'm gonna try shooting it.
Otacon: That'll work too. I put that in as a failsafe.
- I'm reminded of the fact that the Japanese built literal giant humanoid mechs for the purposes of... teleoperated train powerline repair: https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/04/japan-...
- Satyr.. I assume this is satire?
- Given the insane progression in the Home Depot Halloween displays I estimate it’s about two years off - twenty foot tall animatronic skeletons are now table stakes.
- Cant we just invent robot elephants?
- The story on this is that it has 50 sounds that it makes; competing units with less than about 50 sounds, the animals get used to and don’t view the wolf as threatening after a while. However with 50 sounds the animals do not get used to it and they are scared away.
- Karelian Bear Dogs are a better way to manage bears. For example the National Park Service uses them and the Wind River Bear Institute has Karelian Bear Dogs on call.
And they are awesome dogs…bread so you can trust your life to one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karelian_Bear_Dog
https://www.nps.gov/media/photo/view.htm?id=97DA9C58-7976-4D...
- Pros and cons. I believe in Romania, where brown bears are very prevalent, aggressive dog breeds are used to protect sheep... But they are so aggressive that they pose an overall greater risk to humans than the bears themselves: https://romania-mountains.com/shepherd-dogs-in-romania-what-...
- KBD’s are a hunting dogs. They hold bears in place with personality and it is common for them to work alone. In North America, they are used to “shepherd” bears away from human habitats.
For example in the US Park Service link, you can see a single dog riding with a single park ranger.
- Plott hounds also will square up with bears[1]. My childhood dog was a plott hound we adopted from the shelter and we quickly realized he could not be allowed near any other non human animal if we wanted that animal to still live.
Luckily we were in the sticks and had a decent plot of land so he could be out and exercise without putting anyone else’s pets at risk.
- Pretty sure I’m going to be seeing that robot wolf in my nightmares…
- Thought I was in r/nottheonion for a moment
- Title is click bait.
It is a electronic scarecrow.
Maybe one that moves soon, but even then still not something I would call a robot wolf.
- > The robot scarecrows are used to ward off bears in rural areas
Two thoughts on this captioned image: (1) holy $&!# that is horrifying (2) if its designed to ward off bears, isn't it a scarebear?
- With AI seemingly coming for my job, I've been thinking about what I want to do for the next phase of my career. Today I have found the answer - Monster Wolf builder!
- Interested to learn about the encroachment into bear territory. Disappointed this article didn't dig more into exactly why this is becoming an increasing problem. Since Japan's population is declining and most younger people moving into larger cities like Tokyo in search of jobs, my assumption would be that there would be less development in more rural areas, not more.
- > Scientists speculated that the uptick in attacks has been driven by a growing bear population, coupled with the year's bad acorn harvest, USA TODAY previously reported. These conditions created an area "overcrowded with hungry bears," driving the large animals to populated areas in search of food.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2026/05/13/super-m...
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- Perhaps, because there are less people living in the rural areas, the bears are emboldened to roam more freely, thus increasing the frequency of encounters with the human occupiers.
- But then it’s stated oddly. It’s more like bears are encroaching on human territory rather than people expanding into bear territory.
- Eh, I don't think there is much active encroachment happening any longer. Japan is no longer growing into its rural areas so much as receding from them.
Also, under certain constructions of the word "territory," (including the legal one) all territory in Japan is human territory. The bears are allowed to live on some of it but it is at the sufferance of the Japanese people.
- See also headlines that refer to “shark infested waters” instead of “human infested waters”.
- the fact that young people are moving has meant that money, attention and labor is missing, these days in rural sections of aging and developed countries the expertise and interest in forestry or wildlife management simply isn't there any more. I spent a few months in rural Japan a few years ago and it affected all kinds of jobs. Agriculture, pest control, or even much more mundane repair work. I knew a couple that moved there enticed by low property prices but they had to wait months to get the roof fixed.
- People living in rural areas were capable of fixing most of their houses by themselves. When I grew up I spent most summers in a mountain village where people were self-resilient, I had all sorts of woodworking tools in the shed and other than electricity there was nothing my grandpa was not fixing himself and it was the same for all our neighbours.
Now a couple moving from a city to a rural area needs to learn to do this work or not move to a village. The population decline in most places makes it clear that availability of services is only going to get worse.
- > had to wait months to get the roof fixed.
In economic theory, that's an obvious business opportunity.
In the real world.., might you know what barriers a small roofing repair business would face in rural Japan?
- It's hard work. It's dangerous. Many areas get heavy snowfall in the winter which interferes with work. Summers are brutally hot. Many customers in rural areas are living on fixed income, so you are limited in how much you can charge. Commutes to job sites can be long.
My roof was damaged in heavy snowfall this winter and I needed to wait 3 months to get it repaired. And I'm not even really in a rural area. The guy who did the repairs looked to be in his 60s - I don't think many young people are looking to get into this business.
I think most contractors would do better in more densely populated areas where lots of new construction is happening.
- The barriers are that none of your customers have any money, and nobody wants to do the work for the prices the customers can afford.
That's what life in an economically declining/dying area is like.
- Japan has bears and they’re dangerous? Why not use bear spray?
- Pretty much every mountainous region in the mainland of Japan, except for Chiba prefecture, has bears. Most people do not live in the mountains, which is why bear sightings tend to be limited to the areas with (a) significant human population, (b) proximity to mountains.
- They do. My parents live in a mountain village in Japan and never step outside without bear spray and a bear bell. There have been some grim local stories — bears taking pet dogs out of yards. For people up there, it's a daily fear, not an abstraction.
- Weapons in general are far more highly regulated in Japan, and of course the citizens don't have the right to bear arms.
- Makes sense that there's a lot more bears out there when citizens don't have a right to have their arms.
- When I read a story like this it makes me think: man, Japan really needs to get its act together.
America knows exactly what to do when bears are attacking and we're out of robot wolves.
- Japan's firearm regime let to near extinction of hunters. Bears have mostly forgotten that humans are fear, pain and death, doubt these things would change that.
- It's actually more of a social issue rather than a legislative issue.
The vast majority of hunters live out in aging, rural areas. Areas where young people are moving from to more urban cores like Tokyo, Nagoya, or Osaka.
Additionally, hunting isn't seen as a "leisure" activity here; it's seen as a job. One that doesn't pay that well either.
Getting a gun license here isn't hard, takes a couple of months, mostly of just waiting, at worst. The police will do mental health screenings, financial reports, social screenings, and a few other risk vectors, which take a bit.
Source: Actively going through the process.
- Certainly the current firearm regime is an improvement, historically speaking.
- Are these uniquely effective compared to drones, RC cars, etc?
- I was kinda hoping for Bladewolf from Metal Gear Rising but no. Still pretty scary though, and it makes a variety of intimidating noises like a GEKKO unit!
- I wonder if Japan would need robot wolves had they not wrongfully drove their native wolf species to extinction?
- How would native wolves prevent bears from coming down to human settlements?
- The wolves would come to town to get supplies for their friends, the bears?
- Because bears and wolves could compete for resources, bears might avoid areas that were commonly occupied by wolves, and young bear cubs have been documented to fall victim to the occasion wolf pack here and there, albeit the Japanese wolves were the smallest of the common wolf breeds.
I am not trying to say that Japanese wolves would solve the problem entirely, but I do think it is important to not try to sway ecological systems too much. Our interactions with nature can sometimes have unpredictable downstream effects.
If Japan were to be rid of bears, then I imagine their next problem would be sika or wild boars.
- It seems these really are just scarecrows, in that they are rooted to the spot. It's not a robot if it can't move.
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96 points by bookofjoe 9 hours ago | 57 comments