Bears kill one person, injure four in Japan as record number of fatal attacks continues to rise

Separate bear attacks in Japan killed one person and injured four on Friday, officials said, days after the government promised to tighten measures due to a record year for fatal attacks for the animals.

Before Friday’s attacks, the bears had delicate a record nine people this year, surpassing the previous high of six in the fiscal year ending March 2024.

The animal has been increasingly invading the cities of Japan due to factors ranging from a human population in decline to climate change.

In a mountain town in the northern Akita region, police on Friday received a report of a bear attack involving four people.

“One died and three are being treated in a hospital” after the attack, a local police officer told News.

Public broadcaster NHK and other local media reported that two of the injured were working in the field at the time of the attack, while the other two were injured when they went to help.

A local hunter reportedly killed a bear nearby and police are investigating whether he was the one who attacked the four.

In another incident in the central Toyama region, an official told News that “a woman in her 70s was injured in a bear attack” on Friday.

This week, Japan’s new environment minister vowed to get tough on bears, calling the attacks “a serious problem.”

“We are committed to further strengthening various measures, including the protection and training of government hunters and management of the bear population,” the minister said.

In one of the previous deadly attacks, a 60-year-old man went missing earlier this month while cleaning an outdoor toilet in northern Iwate prefecture, an Environment Ministry official told News.

Bears have attacked tourists, entered stores and appeared near schools and parks, especially in northern regions. In August, a hiker in northern Japan He tried to fight a bear, but was dragged into a nearby forest where he was found dead.

Japan has two types of bears: Asian black bears, also known as moon bears, and the larger brown bears that live on the main northern island of Hokkaido.

Thousands of bears are killed every year.

Experts have cited the impacts of climate change on bears’ food sources and hibernation cycles as a key factor, but there are also implications as Japan’s aging population shrinks and humans leave more rural areas.

This depopulation has left bears “an opportunity to expand their range,” according to biologist Koji Yamazaki of the Tokyo University of Agriculture. told News themezone‘Elizabeth Palmer in 2023.