Apparent bear attack kills man in Japan as deaths mount
A rear view of a black bear walking along a rural mountain road in Shizukuishi, Iwate. (File photo: iStock)
TOKYO: A bear appears to have killed a man picking mushrooms in a Japanese forest, police said on Friday (Oct 10), the latest in a spate of suspected confrontations that could set a record if confirmed.
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 in his 70s who went missing after going into the woods to harvest mushrooms was found dead," a local police officer in the northern region of Iwate told AFP.
"We suspect he was attacked by a bear based on scratch marks," he said.
The official death toll due to bear attacks has risen to six for the fiscal year starting April 2025, matching a record high seen in 2023, according to the environment ministry.
But in the last week, there have been three fatal suspected attacks, which would push fatalities to an annual record if the cause of death is confirmed as a bear.
On Wednesday, police found a dead man apparently attacked by a bear in another part of Iwate. Local broadcaster TV Iwate said his head and torso had been separated.
On Saturday, in the central prefecture of Nagano, the body of a 78-year-old man with multiple claw marks was found.
While police highly suspect they died in bear attacks, the cause of death is still under investigation.
Between April and September, 103 people nationwide suffered injuries caused by bears, according to the environment ministry.
On Tuesday, an agitated bear roamed the aisles of a supermarket in Gunma, north of Tokyo, injuring two men and frightening shoppers.
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.
On Sunday, a Spanish tourist was attacked by a bear at a bus stop in the scenic Shirakawa-go village in central Japan.
Among the latest confirmed fatalities was a woman in her 70s who died last week while picking mushrooms in northern Miyagi region with three friends, one of whom is missing.
