This Academy In Japan Offers Capture Courses To Target Wild Animals

Illustration of wild animals. (Unsplash/Christer Gundersen)

JAKARTA - Different from academies in general, this academy in Japan offers courses on all aspects of catching, processing and marketing of wild animals, in hopes of increasing the consumption of large quantities of animals such as deer and wild boars to prevent crop damage.

Seiji Yamasue, who founded Japan's Gibier Academy in Usa, Oita Prefecture in May hopes that deer and wild boars can become "the fourth type of meat to be consumed", in addition to beef, pigs and chickens so as to reduce waste from the destruction of wild animals, reported by Kyodo News November 15.

Students at this academy learn about hunting, slaughtering, skinning and cooking wild animals, how to turn them into products for commercial consumption.

The academy also has classrooms prepared for students to have the experience of skinning directly and cutting wild animals.

In rural Japan, damage to the wild is getting worse as the population ages and more and more animals enter human territory.

Based on the latest data, the cost of culling in Oita reached around 150 million yen (1 million US dollars) in the fiscal year of 2022, along with their efforts to continue to mitigate the bad effects by increasing public interest in consuming wild animals and hunting.

It is known that more than 70,000 wild boars and deer were caught in 2019 in the prefecture, which is Japan's second-highest figure, he said.

Yamasue, which manages a meat processing company, said it knew the carcasses of wild animals destroyed were generally thrown away. This convinces the need for a special processing plant for hunted animal meat.

While observing the wild animal processing plant in southwest Kyushu Island, but doubts whether the meat is handled in a safe manner, Yamasue said he was thinking of "creating a place that teaches the right way" to process the prey.

In contrast to livestock whose weight is regulated standardly, the weight of wild animals is uneven, making it difficult to slaughter.

Yamasue said he hoped to see the spread of "the right way to process hunted animal meat to encourage the greater distribution of delicious wild animals."