Abstract
A hunting ground is an area that national and local governments, hunter, agricultural, and forestry organizations, and others can establish for managing hunting with the consent of those who have registered rights to the land. In many cases, such areas have been established in public forests, property districts, and land owned by forest producers’ cooperatives. This paper clarifies the scope of the hunting ground system by reviewing the history of the system and presenting a case study of the Hino hunting ground, which was established on land owned by forest producers’ cooperatives. First, the review of the general history of the hunting ground system reveals that today's hunting ground system was formed under the philosophy of wildlife protection and breeding; although the conditions for establishing a hunting ground have been relaxed to protect wildlife through the establishment of additional hunting grounds, the relationship with land ownership has not changed and there have been few policy discussions. The case study of the hunting ground in Hino, Shiga Prefecture, revealed that although the restrictions on hunting contribute to maintaining security on land owned by the cooperatives, it is difficult to prevent damage through culling. It is also clear that hunting grounds have not been established on lands other than those owned by forestry cooperatives due to reasons such as unregistered inheritance or unknown owners. This paper notes two issues: (1) although the hunting ground system was formed for the purpose of protecting wildlife, the benefits of hunting grounds to wildlife management involving active capture are unclear, and (2) the establishment of hunting grounds will become more difficult in the future due to problems such as unregistered forests with unknown owners and unregistered inheritances.
https://ror.org/02kpeqv85 
