More than 35 hours have passed since the bear attack in Fukushima City, in which four people were attacked in quick succession, and the situation remains at a standstill. Reporter Hidehiro Miyaguchi: “It has been one day since the incident. The bear is still believed to be on the premises of the business, and the police, city officials, and hunting associations are maintaining a 24-hour vigil.”
The tension continues to rise at the scene… At the business where the bear is believed to be staying, an emergency hunting operation has been in place since June 2nd, and the situation remains at a standstill.
■The scene where four people were attacked and injured at a factory and in a residential area is around Sasakino Station on the Ou Line, about 3 kilometers in a straight line from JR Fukushima Station in Fukushima City, Fukushima Prefecture. At around 6:30 a.m. on the 2nd, the bear attacked two employees at the business and then attacked a resident in a residential area. After that, a security guard who was attacked by the bear at another business suffered serious injuries, including a broken nose. The city has implemented an emergency hunting system since the 2nd, but live ammunition cannot be used because there are flammable materials inside the business premises. They are aiming to capture the bear using tranquilizer guns and box traps, and on-site efforts are continuing.
■Nearby elementary and junior high schools hold online classes As a result, nearby elementary and junior high schools have been temporarily closed, and classes are being held online. Junichi Kuno, the vice-principal of Noda Elementary School, who saw the bear, said, “It felt like it was chasing my car as I started to move, and to be honest, it was scary. I thought it was terrifying. It was surprisingly fast.” More than 35 hours have passed since the incident, but the bear has not yet been captured.
■Bear sightings in Aizuwakamatsu City On the 3rd, a bear was also sighted in the grounds of a shrine in Kadota-cho, Aizuwakamatsu City, and security cameras in a nearby residential area also captured footage of the bear running around. In Fukushima Prefecture, there have already been nearly 400 bear sightings reported this year, and eight people have been injured.
■Why the stalemate? Why has the situation remained at a standstill for more than a day? According to Associate Professor Mochizuki of Fukushima University, the bear may still be agitated from being chased by a car. The bear that has been staying in the area is an individual that has only recently been separated from its mother or is only about a year old, and young bears tend to suffer from prolonged stress. He says that the best course of action would be to capture it in a trap.
■What to do if you are attacked by a bear In this bear attack, it appears that the bear was in an agitated state even before attacking people, and its instinct to pursue the fleeing person kicked in, leading to the attack. If you are attacked, the best thing to do is to crouch down and protect your head as much as possible. With bear sightings increasing, we may need to be prepared for the possibility of a sudden attack.
A bear that appeared in Fukushima City on the 2nd, injuring four people, is still lingering at a factory in a residential area more than 40 hours after the report. Hunters have fired tranquilizer guns at the bear, but it did not fall asleep, making its capture difficult.
It has been confirmed that the bear that had been staying inside a building after attacking four people in Fukushima City moved outside the building late on the night of the 3rd. However, there is still a possibility that the bear is still in the city. Caution is continuing.
■Bear escapes from factory A statement released by Fukushima City at 1am on the 4th said, “We have confirmed that the Asiatic black bear that had been staying inside the factory from June 2nd to 3rd moved outside the premises around 10:50pm on June 3rd.” Approximately 40 hours have passed since the bear attacked the four people. The bear has disappeared from the factory in Fukushima City where it had been staying after entering. A residential area stretches out near the factory where the bear had been staying. The whereabouts of the bear are still unknown. On the 2nd, a bear believed to be over 1 meter in length appeared in Fukushima City. After attacking and injuring four people in the surrounding area, it entered the factory and continued to stay there. Capture operations continued on the 3rd amid heavy rain. Ambulances were also on standby in case of an emergency. The camera can be seen carrying ladders and shields, presumably to the back of the premises where a bear is located. As security measures are put in place to capture the bear, it suddenly disappears. Its disappearance was captured on another camera.
■Bear chases and attacks man This is footage from a security camera installed on the premises of a factory in Fukushima City. The time is around 6:30 a.m. on the 2nd, a man walking by spots something in his line of sight. Sensing danger, he backs away, and the next moment, a large black mass suddenly charges at him at high speed. It is a bear. The surprised man immediately runs away. However, as he runs around trying to shake off the bear, it catches up to him and attacks him from behind. The bear, standing up, appears to be almost the same height as the man. The bear puts its front paws on him from behind, and the man falls to the ground. At that moment, just in the nick of time! A car appears on the premises. The car drives straight ahead to drive the bear away. The bear escapes into a nearby building. 45 seconds after the bear entered the building, it left and ran away. A photo was taken of the building’s entrance. The glass on the right side was shattered and scattered all around. At this factory, two male employees were attacked and injured. On its way, the bear attacked an 80-year-old woman who lived nearby. Furthermore, on the grounds of another factory about 500 meters from the first factory, it attacked a 60-year-old male security guard. The security guard suffered serious injuries, including a broken nose.
■Even with a hit from a tranquilizer gun…Capture proves difficult Following the bear attacks, Fukushima City has blocked off surrounding roads. Also, on the 2nd, Fukushima City began an emergency hunting operation. Three hunters were deployed, and four traps were set up inside the building where the bear was staying. Even after the emergency hunting operation began, gunpowder could not be used because there were flammable materials inside the building, so the hunters could only use tranquilizer guns. According to Fukushima City, one tranquilizer gun hit the bear on the 2nd, but the bear did not fall asleep and remained agitated. Next to the factory where the bear was staying is a children’s center. And about 300 meters away is an elementary school. The elementary school near the factory was closed on the 3rd due to the bear sighting. It would normally be dismissal time, but there were no students in the school building or on the school grounds.
■Why didn’t the bear run away? In Ten’ei Village, also in Fukushima Prefecture, our reporting team encountered a bear. While reporting in Ten’ei Village, where a man was attacked, we spotted a bear by the side of the road. It seemed to have noticed us, but it didn’t try to run away and just wandered around. It was about 5 to 6 meters away, quite close. At around 9 a.m. on the 31st of last month, a man in his 70s who was picking wild vegetables with relatives was attacked from behind by a bear and suffered injuries to his face and other parts of his body. As we were reporting near the scene, the bear seemed to be looking for something to eat, digging in the soil with its front paws and bringing its face close to it. Looking closely, it was opening and closing its mouth and seemed to be eating something. After a while, it left the road and walked towards the mountains. It is not certain whether this bear is the same one that attacked the man in his 70s, but it appeared near the scene and did not flee even after noticing the presence of people.
Regarding this situation, Associate Professor Takayoshi Yamauchi of the Faculty of Agriculture at Iwate University, who is knowledgeable about bear ecology, said: “I think this bear is quite used to humans. It is completely indifferent to the noise of human life. It probably recognizes that there are people in the car and has learned that humans will not do anything.” However, this is only true when there is a reasonable distance between the bear and people. He says that one should be especially careful if one encounters the bear. “One characteristic of bears is that some individuals become agitated after fighting with a human once, and some individuals will attack people one after another as they come into their field of vision.” The bear disappeared from the factory where it had been staying for nearly 40 hours. Fukushima City is calling on residents in the surrounding area to be vigilant. (From the broadcast on June 4, 2026) [TV Asahi NEWS]
On the 2nd, the cause of death of a woman found dead in a forest in Kawabe, Akita City, was determined to be hemorrhagic shock due to trauma, and it was concluded that she was attacked by a bear. Bears had been sighted rummaging through garbage and other items in the vicinity for several days prior, and it appears they had been gradually encroaching on human living areas. We traced the bear’s movements.
According to police and other sources, at around 9:40 a.m. on the 2nd, the body of Sadako Takebayashi (73), a resident of the area, was found in Kawabe Wada, Akita City, and a female adult bear, approximately 95 cm in length, that was nearby was killed by the hunting association. There were bite and scratch wounds from the bear on Ms. Takebayashi’s neck and back. The body was found in a forest about 40 meters southwest of where Ms. Takebayashi is believed to have been mowing grass, and it is thought that she was dragged by the bear.
According to the police and the prefectural information map system “Kumadas,” bear sightings and traces had been repeatedly found in residential areas within a 10km radius of the site for the past two days. These included torn and frayed screen doors and scratches. At one house, shortly after 9pm on the 1st, a resident on the second floor heard a loud bang from the first floor. Upon checking the next morning, they found that one screen door had come off and mud had accumulated on the window. A bear also appeared at a garbage collection point, an essential part of daily life. In response, the area has decided to temporarily suspend the use of the garbage collection point and switch to collection by the city’s garbage trucks.
Furthermore, in another location in Kawabe, Akita City, a bear was spotted peering into a sewer cover just behind a house. It is unknown if it is the same bear, but we spoke to an expert about the continued bear sightings in residential areas and the recent incident of a bear attack nearby. [Koji Yamazaki, Director of the Ibaraki Prefectural Museum of Nature] “Perhaps (last autumn) there were persimmon or chestnut trees, farmland or orchards around the settlement, and the bear may have had success with those last year. The accumulation of these small things can make the bear accustomed to the area around the settlement.” According to the police, a forensic autopsy was performed on the 3rd and it was determined that the cause of death for Mr. Takebayashi was hemorrhagic shock due to multiple traumas. It has been determined that he was injured by a bear.
A 90-year-old man working in a field near his home in Yurihonjo City was attacked by a bear and bitten on the hand and shoulder. According to the police, at around 11:00 a.m., the 90-year-old man was working in a field in Oyakawa, Yurihonjo City, when he was attacked by a bear approximately 1 meter long. The man was bitten on the hand and shoulder, but he managed to return home on his own and his family called the police. The man was taken to the hospital by ambulance, but he is conscious and able to talk. [A member of the hunting association who was at the scene said:] “We can’t identify it, but there were footprints that looked like they belonged to a bear. It wouldn’t be surprising if people said a bear had been in the area, but the frequency of these sightings has been very high recently.” There are houses nearby, and the police and the city are calling on residents to be careful.
A hunter with a shotgun in a bag slung over his shoulder. A careful investigation into bear tracks was carried out. At around 1:30 p.m. on the 3rd, a man in his 70s who was picking bamboo shoots on the Nakayama Forest Road in Jozankei, Minami Ward, Sapporo City, spotted a bear behind a gate. The bear was about 1 meter long and approached the man, so he sprayed bear spray and the bear ran away. Sapporo City categorizes bears into four levels of harmfulness based on their reaction to humans.
The city determined that this bear was at harmfulness level 2, as it “did not run away immediately upon seeing a person.” On the 4th, a patrol of the area was conducted for about two hours starting before noon, but no bears were found. Old droppings and evidence of eaten butterbur were found. (Sapporo City Environmental Coexistence Division Chief Kazuhito Sakata) “We have confirmed that there was a brown bear that did not run away even upon seeing a person, so it would be best to avoid using this area for a while.” The city is calling on people not to enter the forest alone and to take sufficient precautions against bears. ▼HTB Hokkaido News Official Website
