Body of suspected bear attack victim found on mountain in Japan as deadly encounters continue

Japanese police are investigating another suspected fatal bear attack, a local official told AFP on Tuesday, as the number of such deaths remains unusually high.

Bear attacks have been on the rise in Japan in recent years, something scientists attribute to a spike in the animals’ population and a declining number of people in rural areas.

Authorities in northern Aomori prefecture said on Monday that a man found dead on a mountain that day may have been attacked by a bear.

“Police are still investigating the cause” of the man’s death, but bear bite marks had been found on his body, a local official told AFP on Tuesday, not giving his name in line with common practice in Japan.

Fatal maulings in the last three months have jumped fivefold compared to last year, according to government data.

Five people have died due to bear attacks since April, according to separate statistics from the environment ministry.

Publicly available ministry data, dating back to the fiscal year ending March 2018, shows that this year is the first to see more than two deaths in the period from April to June.

A record 13 people were killed by bears in Japan last year, and there has been a jump in encounters as the animals emerge hungry from hibernation.

In the year to March, bear sightings nationwide topped 50,000 — more than double the previous record set two years earlier, according to official data.

Deadly trend continues

The apparent attack in Aomori marks the latest example of encroachment by Japan’s growing bear population in areas with an aging and declining human population.

Earlier this month, dozens of police officers, hunters and city officials were deployed in the city of Utsunomiya, north of Tokyo, to catch a bear that roamed the streets for four days, forcing mass school closures.

In the Fukushima region this month, a bear attacked four people at two factories and in a residential area, before escaping hunters.

Bears are thriving thanks in part to an abundance of food — including acorns, deer and boars — under the influence of a warming climate, experts say.

The animals have been seen on airport runways, walking on golf courses, roaming near schools and causing panic in supermarkets and hot spring resorts almost on a daily basis.

The problem was so bad that last year the U.S. State Department warned Americans in Japan to be alert for bears. 

A Japanese company making ferocious-looking robot wolves is being swamped by orders amid the spate of bear attacks. “Monster Wolf” is an animatronic scarecrow with flashing red eyes that howls and growls menacingly to scare away wild animals