Agitated bear injures 2 people in Japan grocery store as man killed in separate suspected attack

Tokyo — An agitated bear roamed the aisles of a grocery store in central Japan, injuring two men and frightening shoppers, officials said Wednesday, while Japanese media said a man was found dead after a separate suspected bear mauling.

More and more wild bears have been spotted in Japan in recent years, even in residential areas, due to factors including a declining human population and climate change.

A man was found dead on a mountain Wednesday in the northern Iwate region after a suspected bear attack, according to public broadcaster NHK, citing police.

Separately, the 4.5-foot adult bear that entered the grocery store Tuesday evening in Numata, Gunma, north of Tokyo, lightly injured a man in his 70s and another in his 60s, regional police and fire officials said.

The store is close to mountainous areas, but has never had bears come near before, Hiroshi Horikawa, a management planning official at the grocery store chain, told AFP.

“It entered from the main entrance and stayed inside for roughly four minutes,” he said. “It almost climbed onto the fish case and damaged glass. In the fruits section, it knocked over a pile of avocados and stamped on them.”

The store’s manager told local media that around 30 to 40 customers were inside at the time, and that the bear became agitated as it struggled to find the exit.

Also on Tuesday, a farmer in Iwate region was scratched and bitten by a bear, accompanied by a cub, just outside his house.

A Spanish tourist on Sunday was attacked by a bear at a bus stop in scenic Shirakawa-go village in central Japan.

Between April and September, 108 people nationwide suffered injuries caused by bears, including five deaths, according to the environment ministry. There were a record number of human encounters with bears in Japan last year, with 219 attacks including six deaths in the 12 months to April 2024.

The impacts of climate change on the bears’ food sources and hibernation cycles has been cited by experts as a key factor, but there are also implications as Japan’s aging population shrinks and humans abandon more rural areas.

That depopulation has left bears “a chance to expand their range,” biologist Koji Yamazaki, from Tokyo University of Agriculture, told CBS News‘ Elizabeth Palmer in 2023.

Japan is one of the few places in the world where a large mammal species has been reclaiming habitat — which is good news for the bears, but if, as biologists suspect, the bear population is growing, the country will have to figure out new ways to protect people and vital infrastructure from the animals.