Bear-deterring "Monster Wolves"sold out in Japan
Japan is facing a significant bear problem, leading to a surge in demand for bear-deterring 'Monster Wolves.' These animatronic scarecrows, priced at $4000, have sold out due to their effectiveness and terrifying design. The company producing them is experiencing unprecedented demand, with a waiting list of two to three months for new orders.
- ▪The 'Monster Wolves' are solar-powered animatronic scarecrows designed to deter bears.
- ▪There were a record 13 fatal bear attacks in Japan during 2025-2026, prompting increased interest in the wolves.
- ▪The company has sold more wolves than it typically does in a year, leading to a waiting list for customers.
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| Original publisher | Boing Boing |
| Canonical URL | https://boingboing.net/2026/05/19/bear-deterring-monster-wolvessold-out-in-japan.html |
| Publication time | Tue, 19 May 2026 16:44:39 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-19T17:14:57.872Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-19T17:14:57.872Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | VlpW59gSYaAh · 2 stories |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
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| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Bear-deterring "Monster Wolves"sold out in Japan Gail Sherman 9:44 am Tue May 19, 2026 Image: YouTube / The Telegraph Japan has a growing bear problem, and one deterrent is so popular that it has sold out. A Hokkaido company has been selling "Monster Wolves" since 2016 to help combat the problem. As seen in this video, the $4000 solar powered animatronic scarecrows are absolutely terrifying, with flashing red eyes and screams that can be heard a half a mile away. The wolves are made by hand, and company president Yuji Ohta told AFP that they are currently sold out with a waiting list of two to three months. Customers have already ordered more wolves than the company usually sells in a year.
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