Prior to this year, no fatal bear attacks were reported in Japan for more than a decade. Now, police in the country are investigating what's thought to be at least the fifth such attack of 2023. Police on the northern Hokkaido island, where brown bears roam, say the body of a university student was discovered Nov. 2 on Mount Daisengen near the town of Fukushima. A DNA analysis identified the man as 22-year-old Kanato Yanaike of Hakodate, who'd failed to return from an Oct. 29 climbing trip, the Mainichi reports. An autopsy showed he'd died of hemorrhagic shock from severe bleeding.
That didn't take much to explain: A brown bear had been found dead a short distance from Yanaike's body, with the assumption that the bear killed Yanaike. The young man might not have been the bear's only victim. Local police are investigating the possibility that the same bear attacked three men in the area on Oct. 31, Live Science reports. The men were able to fight off the bear with a knife, though two were seriously injured. It's unclear what ultimately killed the bear whose carcass was discovered, but scientists at the Hokkaido Research Organization plan to review the bear's stomach contacts for clues, per the Mainichi.
Yanaike may be the fifth person to be killed in a bear attack this year. A brown bear found with bloody waders in its mouth is thought to have killed and beheaded an angler at Lake Shumarinai in Hokkaido in April, per the Japan Times and Live Science. Then in August, an 83-year-old woman was found with head injuries near a forest in northeastern Iwate prefecture. She was able to murmur the word "bear" before dying at a hospital, police said, per the Asahi Shimbun. Another woman was found dead in Toyama prefecture, on the west coast of Japan's main island, on Oct. 18 in what the Mainichi describes as "a suspected bear attack."
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There was at least one additional death from the start of April to the end of October for five total, the South China Morning Post reports. It describes 180 incidents in that period. Some 109 people were injured in bear attacks from April to September, the first six months of Japan's financial year, which is reported to be the highest figure for such a period since the government began compiling data in 2007. Experts believe bears are having a hard time finding food this year after favorable conditions boosted the number of cubs born in 2022, forcing them into populated areas. They warn more attacks could come as bears prepare for hiberation over the next few weeks. (More Japan stories.)
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