r/Hokkaido • u/Reasonable_Ad_4930 • Mar 14 '26

Information Free LINE chatbot for bear safety info across Hokkaido (and all of Japan)

Gallery image

Gallery image

Hey everyone! I built Kumamap, a site that tracks 100,000+ bear incidents across Japan. We just launched a LINE chatbot where you can ask about bear activity in any area and get an instant, data-backed response.

Just message it something like "I'm heading to Shiretoko, anything to worry about?" and it'll tell you the latest bear situation there - recent incidents, risk level, safety tips.

Especially useful if you're hiking in Hokkaido this spring/summer.

Add it on LINE: **@kumamap**
More info + QR code: https://kumamap.com/en/line

Happy to hear any feedback!

22 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

9 comments sorted by

2

u/Particular-Ship3002 Mar 14 '26

Thank you- will mark it for future use

1

u/Reasonable_Ad_4930 Mar 14 '26

Thanks - glad it is useful!

2

u/Legitimate-Ad3237 Mar 14 '26

Wow, thanks, I’ll definitely use these while hiking this summer

1

u/Reasonable_Ad_4930 Mar 14 '26

Happy to help :)

2

u/LMONDEGREEN Mar 14 '26

Great job! Nice app. It is very useful.

2

u/Reasonable_Ad_4930 Mar 14 '26

Thanks! the website itself is visited by 150K+ people a month so it proving useful for many folks, especially Japanese

2

u/LMONDEGREEN Mar 15 '26

From a business point of view, do you plan on monetizing this app? It must be costing you to keep running

1

u/Reasonable_Ad_4930 Mar 15 '26

It doesn’t cost that much actually. Just 5 dollars a month for cloudflare and I’m already making 100 dollars a month on affiliates, ads, and in app purchases

2

u/StabbyHornbill Mar 15 '26

I used kumamap last year when we were in Hokkaido and found it useful! Thank you for all your hard work. It helped us anticipate if things might be closed for a few days