Asian black bear
Asiatic black bears are diurnal, though they become nocturnal near human habitations. They may live in family groups consisting of two adults and two successive litters of young. They will walk in a procession of largest to smallest. They are good climbers of rocks and trees, and will climb to feed, rest, sun, elude enemies and hibernate. Some older bears may become too heavy to climb. Half of their life is spent in trees and they are one of the largest arboreal mammals. In the Ussuri territory in the Russian Far East, black bears can spend up to 15% of their time in trees. Asiatic black bears break branches and twigs to place under themselves when feeding on trees, thus causing many trees in their home ranges to have nest-like structures on their tops. Asiatic black bears will rest for short periods in nests on trees standing fifteen feet or higher. Asiatic black bears do not hibernate over most of their range. They may hibernate in their colder, northern ranges, though some bears will simply move to lower elevations. Nearly all pregnant sows hibernate. Black bears prepare their dens for hibernation in mid-October, and will sleep from November until March. Their dens can either be dug out hollow trees (sixty feet above ground), caves or holes in the ground, hollow logs, or steep, mountainous and sunny slopes. They may also den in abandoned brown bear dens. Asiatic black bears tend to den at lower elevations and on less steep slopes than brown bears. Female black bears emerge from dens later than do males, and female black bears with cubs emerge later than barren females. Asiatic black bears tend to be less mobile than brown bears. With sufficient food, Asian black bears can remain in an area of roughly 1–2 sq km, and sometimes even as little as 0.5–1 sq km.
Asian black bear
Today, black bears are only legally hunted for sport in Japan and Russia. In Russia, 75–100 black bears are legally harvested annually, though 500 a year are reportedly harvested illegally. Russian sport hunting of black bears became legalised in 2004. According to a 2008 article written in "The Sun", Russia's Slavic Hunting Club offers four day trips with four guaranteed black bear kills for the sum of £16,000. The article indicated that clients receiving permits for black bear hunts included people from Britain, the United States, Germany, Spain, Poland and Finland.
After the introduction of Buddhism in Japan, which prohibited the killing of animals, the Japanese compromised by devising different strategies in hunting bears. Some, such as the inhabitants of the Kiso area in the Nagano Prefecture, prohibited the practise altogether, while others developed rituals in order to placate the spirits of killed bears. In some Japanese hunting communities, black bears lacking the white chest mark are considered sacred. In the Akita Prefecture, bears lacking the mark were known by "matagi" huntsmen as "minaguro" (all black) or "munaguro" (black chested), and were also considered messengers of "yama no kami". If such a bear was shot, the huntsman would offer it to "yama no kami", and give up hunting from that time on. Similar beliefs were held in Nagano, where the completely black bears were termed "nekoguma" or cat-bear. "Matagi" communities believed that killing a bear in the mountains would result in a bad storm, which was linked to the belief that bear spirits could affect weather. The "matagi" would generally hunt bears in spring or from late autumn to early winter, before they hibernated. In mountain regions, bears were hunted by driving them upland to a waiting hunter who would shoot it. Bear hunting expeditions were preceded by rituals, and could last up to two weeks. After killing the bear, the "matagi" would pray for the bear's soul. Bear hunts in Japan are often termed "kuma taiji", meaning "bear conquest". The word "taiji" itself is often used in Japanese folklore to describe the slaying of monsters and demons.