Police on Monday discovered the head of Toshihiro Nishikawa, 54, on the banks of a lake in Shumarinai Prefectural Natural Park.
He had been dropped off alone near the lake by a guide shortly after 5am on Sunday. Returning to the same spot around four hours later, the guide reportedly spotted a large brown bear with fishing waders in its mouth. He attempted to contact Nishikawa by phone but got no reply.
The guide then contacted the town office and local police, which sent out search parties. Nishikawa’s head was discovered later in the afternoon and a hunter shot a bear found nearby.
Japan has seen a surge in bear sightings – and confrontations with people – in recent years, with the largely rural Hokkaido the most common place for humans to come face-to-face with the animals.
In addition to the attack, a series of sightings close to the city of Muroran over the weekend prompted authorities to issue the bear alert – the second so far this year. The local government said residents were at risk of being harmed and that the warning would remain in effect until June 12. There have also been bear sightings in Sapporo, Hokkaido’s largest city.
A woman was attacked by a bear while walking her dog on the outskirts of the town of Kushiro in the prefecture last month, sustaining serious injuries to her head and legs.
“Confrontations between people and bears have been increasing in recent years and there are a number of reasons for that,” said Kevin Short, a naturalist and professor of cultural anthropology at Tokyo University of Information Studies.
Bear attacks surge in Japan, as thousands spotted out of the wild
“Perhaps the main one is that the bear population of Hokkaido has recovered after years of over-hunting and as there are simply fewer hunters now.”
“The deer population has also recovered, which is a key food source, while there have also been efforts across the prefecture to restore natural habitats in woodlands and along rivers, all of which increases the bears’ range.”
Hunting’s decline has allowed bears to grow larger, Short said. It also means they are no longer as afraid of humans and are venturing closer to populated areas.
“You could say that Hokkaido has become more bear-friendly, particularly in the areas around Sapporo, and that means more bears are going to come closer to the urban areas and they are inevitably going to meet people,” he said.
People who come to Hokkaido for the outdoor activities today are not very bear-savvy and that is getting them into trouble
Many confrontations involve people exercising their pets, hikers and people picking mushrooms, berries or wild fruit in the autumn months.
“Part of the problem is that in the past, the people who lived in these areas knew how to take precautions against suddenly coming up against a bear and what to do if they were unlucky,” Short said. “People who come to Hokkaido for the outdoor activities today are not very bear-savvy and that is getting them into trouble.”
Bears have become such a concern across Japan recently that the Environment Ministry launched a pilot programme in January to promote liaisons between local authorities, police forces and hunters’ organisations to enable them to respond rapidly to bear sightings and either kill or capture the animals that are becoming a threat to residents.
The number of bear encounters in Japan soared to more than 20,000 in 2020 – the latest year for which figures are available – up from 4,800 in 2009. Two people were killed and 143 injured by bears in 2020, with around 40 per cent of the cases in or around areas of human habitation.
Man versus beast: Japanese fisherman uses karate to win epic fight with wild bear
The authorities in the Hokkaido towns of Shibecha and Akkeshi have been hunting one particularly wily bear since 2019 to no avail. The bear, given the name OSO18, has repeatedly attacked herds of dairy cattle, killing 31 and injuring a further 65.
Analysis of the bear’s footprints and brief images caught on wildlife cameras indicate that it is a male, about 10 years old, around 2 metres long and weighing more than 300kg.
OSO18 is not, however, the most notorious bear to have roamed Hokkaido.
Over the course of six days in December 1915, a brown bear attacked a number of households in and around the village of Sankebetsu, killing nine people and injuring three more. When it was finally shot, the bear was found to weigh 340kg and stood 2.7 metres tall.
