At a glance Country: JapanIndustry: Agriculture

ChallengeWild animals can cause damage to crops and agricultural land, which leads to financial losses. Now that the hunter population is aging, box traps have become more relied upon than ever. For agricultural communities, there is a need to reduce the workload of patrolling box traps and to efficiently reduce wild animal population.

SolutionBoth Takamori Town Office and Nogata City Office implemented Fujitsu’s Cloud-Enabled System for Capturing Wild Animals to reduce damages to agricultural land by wild boars. This solution employs image recognition technologies to automatically judge whether the capture of wild boar is successful before notifying city clerks and local hunting associations.

Benefit■ Workloads have been dramatically reduced

by remote monitoring systems

■ Adult boar capture rate has risen from 45 percent to 65 percent

■ Financial losses have been reduced due to less damage to crops

Takamori Town Office and Nogata City Office deploys Fujitsu’s Cloud-Enabled Solution for Wide Area Wild Animals Control to reduce crop damage by wild boars.

Yusuke UedaChief of the Takamori Town OfficeAgriculture and Forestry Policy Division

“ Fujitsu‘s Cloud-Enabled Solution for Wide Area Wild Animals Control is highly practical, not only for functions such as automated capture notification emails, but also checking the status of box traps with images.”

CUSTOMER CASE STUDY

Wild animal damage controlSince surveillance on crop damage caused by wild animals began in 1999, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries has reported that the nation-wide damage has been approximately 20 billion yen a year. Damages to agricultural lands and crops by wild boar have bothered both Takamori Town Office (Kumamoto Prefecture) and Nogata City Office (Fukuoka Prefecture).

“The wild boar is an omnivore and eats everything from leaf buds, mountain potatoes, vegetables, and rice,” says Yusuke Ueda, Chief of the Takamori Town Office Agriculture and Forestry Policy Division. “They severely damage fields, and farming becomes impossible. However, they are extremely sensitive to human smells, so it is very hard to capture them.”

With the population of hunters decreasing due to aging, box traps are now the favored method. However, these traps require daily patrols to check the capture of wild animals and bait. “In Nogata city, three hunters patrol 50-60 traps a day, which is difficult particularly in bad weather,” says Katsuyuki Tanaka, Chief of the Nogata City Office Agriculture Promotion Division. The challenge of wild animal damage control is to reduce the workload of patrolling box traps and the wild animal population.

“We have talked with Fujitsu before about an ICT-enhanced plant factory, and have been surprized by its advanced ideas and technologies. And this time, we have great expectations, hearing that Fujitsu has ICT-enhanced box traps which effectively capture adult wild boars,” says Katsuyuki Tanaka.

Cutting edge solution from FujitsuFujitsu‘s Cloud-Enabled Solution for Wide Area Wild Animals Control system is activated by infrared sensors which detect a wild animal entering a box trap, then a surveillance camera captures its image and the image analysis system discriminates whether it is the size of an adult wild boar. If so, a shutter closes and an alert with an image of the captured boar is emailed to city clerks and local hunting associations.

Discrimination between adult and baby boars “uses Japan’s first image analysis technologies and boasts high discrimination rate. That also makes this system appealing,” says Tanaka.

Another requirement was that hunters and farmers who are accustomed to conventional trapping methods understand the benefits of using the latest ICT-supported box traps. To achieve this, Takamori town and Nogata city had information sessions with advisors from Kyushu Natural Environment Research co., Ltd (Takamori) and Regional Environmental Planning, Inc. (Nogata).

The main focus of these sessions was to explain how the ICT box traps work and how to use them. “Hunters and farmers who attended initially struggled with smartphone and tablet pc operations, but became gradually accustomed to them. The system is highly practical not only for functions such as automated emails of capture notification but also checking the status of box traps with images,” explains Ueda.

Efficiently controlled animal populationThe system was in full operation in 2016. Currently 29 units in Takamori town and 30 units in Nogata city are monitored on the cloud system.

“Before, wild boar occasionally broke the traps and ran away without the hunter’s notice. This will no longer happen thanks to the automated capture alert,” said Ueda. Also, fewer patrols result in less human smell left around box traps, which attracts more wild boars.

Another result is the significant reduction of the wild boar population. According to Tetsuya Murakami, Research Specialist for the Fukuoka Agriculture and Forestry Research Center Animal Production Division, “After introducing the ICT box traps, the capture rate of adult boar has risen to 65 percent from 46 percent.” Koichi Goto, President of the Takamori Hunting Association agrees: “Large wild boars are caught more efficiently since the ICT box traps were introduced.”

Now that they can capture more wild boars, Takamori town has set a goal to catch 900 wild boars and deer respectively, and 30 monkeys each year. “We are doing a good job to achieve that goal. It costs about 2 million yen to operate and maintain the system a year, but we can expect the reduction of agricultural damage, so the cost performance of this system is great.”

There are other benefits of the ICT box trap: “For example, digitalization of box traps leads to a better understanding of wild boar ecology. Data gathered from various trap locations contributes to further understanding of how and where the box traps should be set,” said Murakami.

Both Takamori town and Nogata city achieved reductions of agricultural damages by using Fujitsu’s Cloud-Enabled Solution for Wide Area Wild Animals Control. Ueda expects further development of this system, and says, “If this system is introduced in neighboring cities on a larger scale in the future, we can collaborate to capture wild animals with them. We expect Fujitsu to promote this system for such a synergistic effect.”

CustomerTakamori town is located at the foot of Mt. Minamiaso and Mt. Nekodake, and is famous for notable agricultural and tourism industries. It produces brand vegetables including daikon radish and cabbage and focuses on branding ‘Nangou-hinoki’, a high-quality Hinoki Cypress in the Aso region. Nogata city is located at the northern part of Fukuoka Prefecture. It is originally a city of commerce and industry, but also focuses on agriculture, food education and local produce for local consumption.

Products and services ■ Fujitsu Cloud-Enabled Solution for Wide Area Wild

Animals Control

© 2017 Fujitsu and the Fujitsu logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Fujitsu Limited in Japan and other countries. Other company, product and service names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. Technical data subject to modification and delivery subject to availability. Any liability that the data and illustrations are complete, actual or correct is excluded. Designations may be trademarks and/or copyrights of the respective manufacturer, the use of which by third parties for their own purposes may infringe the rights of such owner.

06-16

FUJITSUPhone: +81-3-6252-2220