4 killed in north Japan bear attacks
Print Edition
FOUR people foraging for edible wild plants or bamboo shoots were killed in bear attacks in a small area of northern Japan in three weeks, police said yesterday, and are warning people to take precautions.
The bodies of the three men and one woman had bites and scratches presumably made by “a large animal,” Kazuno Police Station spokesman Noboru Abukawa said. He added that police heard roars of a bear or bears and saw bears from a helicopter while searching for the victims. The victims, who were aged 65 to 79, were killed in a mountainous area within a 2.5-kilometer radius since May 20.
Police are not sure of the cause of the sudden increase in the number of bear attacks. Abukawa said there had been no deaths from bear attacks in the last five years in Kazuno. The city in Akita prefecture is more than 600 kilometers north of Tokyo.
On Friday, hunters shot and killed a female Asiatic black bear with a body length of 1.3 meters about 20 meters southwest of where the fourth victim was found dead, but Abukawa said it was unclear whether the dead bear had attacked the victims.
Police are enhancing patrols and have distributed fliers alerting residents around the mountainous area to exercise caution. In nearby Iwate prefecture, eight people were attacked by bears on six occasions between April 1 and June 7, according to its prefectural website.
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