In a log cabin high on a wooded mountainside in Hiroshima Prefecture, Kazuhiko Maita, 61-year-old director of the nonprofit Institute for Asian Black Bear Research and Preservation, is puzzling over the fate of Japan's black bears.
Outside, the unpainted wood stairs are scored with scratches (four long, one short) where a "moon bear" (so-called because of the white marking on each animal's chest) has climbed up to the porch. Inside, a bear skeleton hulks in a corner of the room beneath photographs Maita has taken during years of field research: bears poking their noses out of winter dens, bears draped sleepily over tree branches, and bears snuffling around for acorns.
Maita has devoted his adult life to Japan's black bears (Ursus thibetanus japonicus). He worked for 20 years in a prefectural wildlife bureau and has since put in another two decades as a conservationist.