A spike in suspected bear attacks has killed several people in Japan – National

A man in Japan was killed by a bear on Friday, the same week a bear was killed She pounced on the shoppers In a grocery store in the northern Tokyo area, another person was found beheaded in a suspicious location Bear attackJapanese officials said this represented an escalation in such confrontations.

According to Japan Timesa man in his 70s who went missing after going to pick mushrooms in the forest was found dead after being beaten.

“We suspect he was attacked by a bear based on the scratch marks,” an Iwate Prefectural police official told Japanese media.

Between April and September, five people were confirmed killed by bears in Japan, and 108 people were injured. Several incidents under investigation, including the man found on Friday, could lead to a record number of bear-related deaths in the country since 2023, according to a report. Agence France-Presse.

On Wednesday, Iwate police found another dead man, allegedly killed by a bear, and his head severed from his body, officials said.

Then, on Saturday, in Nagano Prefecture, the body of a 78-year-old man was found with multiple claw marks.

It is believed that all the victims were killed by bears, although investigations are still ongoing.

The Japanese Times newspaper said that a Spanish tourist was attacked by a bear on Sunday at a bus stop in the Shirakawago settlement in Gifu Prefecture.

Among the latest confirmed deaths is a woman in her 70s who died last week while picking mushrooms in Miyagi Prefecture. She added that she was with three of her friends, one of whom was missing.

Last Tuesday, two people sustained minor injuries A bear wandered into a grocery store In the metropolitan city, the metropolitan area of ​​Tokyo.

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National Public Broadcasting Corporation of Japan, NHKwrote that police were called to reports of a bear lying on top of a customer after it attacked someone in the store’s parking lot.

According to Agence France-PresseThe bear was about 1.4 meters long and wandered through the store’s selection of fish and sushi before stepping on an avocado in the fruit section.

Hiroshi Horikawa, a management planning official at the grocery store chain, told AFP that the store, located near mountainous areas where bears are found, had never been attacked by bears before.

Reports of bear attacks in Japan, including in residential neighborhoods, have become more common in recent years, partly due to… Human population decline and Climate changewhich affected the bears’ access to food sources and, consequently, their hibernation cycles.

Bear numbers are increasing in Japan, which is home to two species of bear: the Japanese black bear and the Hokkaido brown bear.

According to Reuters, Japanese bear numbers are on the rise due in part to an aging population of professional hunters struggling to manage them, as well as broader conservation efforts that include hunting bans and declining human numbers in rural areas, leaving space for the bears to expand their habitat.

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