Bears Kill Record Number Of People In Japan This Year As Another Potential Victim Is Added

Bears have killed a record number of people in Japan this year, the Environment Ministry said on Thursday, as another possible victim went missing.

Sticking with starvation due to food shortages such as acorns – blamed on climate change – is making more inroads into cities where the population is aging and shrinking.

Experts say the warmer weather is also affecting the hibernation patterns of the animals, which in the case of brown bears can expect to weigh 1,100 pounds and leave a person.

The new death toll of seven people in the current financial year is “the worst since 2006, when the statistics began,” an environmental service official told AFP.

It has passed a record high of five deaths for the 2023-24 fiscal year, an official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

More than 100 people were left with injuries including bites and deep burns from the sharp edges of the bears.

The record was reached following confirmation that the man was set in his 70s found dead on Oct. 8 In the north of the Iwate Region a bear had been killed. Japan SASScaster TV IWate said the man’s head and torso were separated.

The body of another man in his 70s, also in Iwate, was found two days later in the forest where they were picking mushrooms. A few days earlier, the body of a 78-year-old man was found with multiple bullet marks in the Central Prefecture of Nagano.

However, the cause of death was yet to be confirmed in either of those last two cases.

In August, a hiker in northern Japan He tried to fight the bear but was dragged into the nearby forest where he was found dead.

Blood was found after the worker was reported missing

A worker at a hot spring resort in Kitakami, Iwate, was reported missing on Thursday. Local media say the Search Team has found what appears to be human blood.

Five more people were reported Thursday in the incidents in Akita and Fukushima prefectures, Fuji television network reported.

A 4.5-foot adult bear tore into a store near Typhoon Gunma north of Tokyo last week, leaving one person in his 70s and another in his 60s injured.

The store is close to mountainous areas but there have never been bears close by before, Hiroshi Herikawa, who runs the store, told AFP.

The animal moved into the fish area and “in the fruit section, it knocked over a bunch of avocados and stepped on them,” she said.

The store manager told local media that about 30 to 40 customers were inside at the time, and that the bear was restless as it struggled to get out.

A Spanish tourist was attacked by a bear this month at a bus stop in the low-lying village of Shirakawa-ziye in central Japan.

Japan has two species of bear: Asiatic black bears – also known as moon bears – and giant brown bears that live on the northern main island of Hokkaido.

Thousands of animals are shot every year.

The impacts of climate change on Bears’ food sources and hibernation cycles have been identified by experts as significant, but there are also consequences as Japan’s aging population shrinks and people leave more rural areas.

That the depopaling left the bears “an opportunity to expand their range,” biologist Koji Yamazaki, from the Tokyo University of Agriculture, he told CBS news‘Elizabeth Palmer in 2023.