Asian black bear
Five black bear populations, occurring in Kyushu, Shikoku, West-Chugoku, East-Chugoku and Kii areas, were listed as endangered by the Environmental Agency in the Japanese Red Data Book in 1991. Small isolated populations in the Tanzawa and Shimokita areas of mainland Honshū were listed as endangered in 1995. Beyond recognising these populations as endangered, there is still a lack of efficient conservation methods for Japanese black bears.
Asian black bear
Asiatic black bears are reproductively compatible with several other bear species, and have on occasion produced hybrid offspring. According to Jack Hanna's "Monkeys on the Interstate", a bear captured in Sanford, Florida was thought to have been the offspring of an escaped female Asiatic black bear and a male American black bear, and Scherren's "Some notes on hybrid bears" published in 1907 mentioned a successful mating between an Asiatic black bear and a sloth bear. In 1975, within Venezuela's "Las Delicias" Zoo, a female black bear shared its enclosure with a male spectacled bear, and produced several hybrid descendants. In 2005, a possible black bear–sun bear hybrid cub was captured in the Mekong River watershed of eastern Cambodia. An Asiatic black bear/brown bear hybrid, taken from a bile farm, is housed at the Animals Asia Foundation's China Moon Bear Rescue .