From predator to plate: Japan bear crisis sparks culinary craze

Since Japan recorded a spike in deadly bear attacks, Koji Suzuki has struggled to keep up with booming demand for grilled cuts of the animal at his restaurant.
Cooked on a stone slate — or in a hot pot with vegetables — the meat comes from bears culled to curb maulings that have killed a record 13 people this year.
Suzuki's eatery in the hilly city of Chichibu near Tokyo also serves deer and wild boar, but bear has surged in popularity after months of headlines about the animals breaking into homes, wandering near schools and rampaging through supermarkets.
'With news about bears growing, the number of customers who want to eat their meat has increased a lot', Suzuki, 71, said.
As a show of respect for the bear's life, 'it's better to use the meat at a restaurant like this, rather than burying it', said Suzuki, who is also a hunter.
His wife Chieko, 64, who runs the restaurant, said she now frequently turns away customers, but declined to say exactly how much business has grown.
One diner who nabbed a seat, 28-year-old composer Takaaki Kimura, was trying bear for the first time.
'It's so juicy and the more you chew, the tastier it gets', he said, grinning as he and his friends sat around the grilling stone and bubbling pot.
Although far from an everyday dish, bear has long been eaten in mountainous villages across Japan.
The government hopes the meat can become a source of income for rural communities.
'It is important to turn the nuisance wildlife into something positive', the farm ministry said earlier this month.
Local authorities will receive $118 million (18.4 billion yen) in subsidies to control bear populations and promote sustainable consumption.
Some restaurants need no convincing.
Katsuhiko Kakuta, 50, who runs a village-owned restaurant in Aomori, one of the regions hardest hit by bear attacks, said he sold out of the meat earlier this month. Japan has 826 game factories nationwide, but only a handful in northern prefectures hit hardest by attacks.
Kakuta's restaurant has its own butchery, supplying bear meat dishes to a nearby hotel.
'Bear meat is a tourism resource for us', he said. 'And we use something that would otherwise be buried as garbage'. — AFP