Are there places in Hokkaido that Japanese people can hunt and trap and/or live off-grid?

6 comments

1. A Japanese friend of mine did that for a year. He was practicing minimalism.

2. …. You need a License to carry firearms – I dunno about traps tho – But I would believe you’d possibly need a License for that too, plus need to either own the land, or have written permission from the owner of the land (Which you are Highly Unlikely to get easily in most cases).

   I feel like it would be really hard (and likely costly) in practice to be able to pull all that off – but I dunno.

   Maybe someone else has more answers here?

3. [deleted]

4. You can live off-grid in Tokyo

   Just turn your phone off & stop using the internet

5. Japan is actually much less regulated than the US in terms of living off the land as long as you own the land. If you own it, you can pretty much do whatever you want on it as long as it’s not a commercial business. You can slap something together out of plywood to live in, collect rain water, generate your own electricity with zero taxes on it, keep animals, really almost anything.

   But conversely, you need a license to hunt wild animals and the methods you’re allowed to use are very strictly regulated. Only certain types of traps are allowed. You cannot set a trap without a license. Traps have to be labeled with your contact info. You cannot hunt with a bow and arrow or crossbow or literally any other weapon than a few very strictly regulated guns which you need multiple licenses to carry (you need a trappers license to get a gun license for hunting). But a foreigner can actually get a gun license.

6. A female friend of mine is living almost off the grid (electricity) in Chiba. She has permission to trap and kill boars. As well as eating it, she uses the meat to barter for stuff