Japan’s bears in ‘bad mood’ and hungry as attacks on humans surge

According to a wildlife expert, bears that had crossed paths with Japanese residents in the past few weeks were hungry, “in a bad mood” and “not keen to hang out with humans”.

The warning comes after a record high of 219 people were reportedly attacked by bears in the financial year that ended on March 31. Six of those were fatal attacks, including the death of a fisherman on a lake in Hokkaido in May. The 1.5-metre-long bear was found with the man’s waders in its mouth and was shot dead.

Since the start of the financial year on April 1, authorities across Japan have reported 32 bear sightings, 50 per cent more than in a typical year, the ministry said.

Following several bear sightings in Akita prefecture, in the far north of Honshu, the prefectural government issued a black bear warning for residents on April 18, the earliest it has called on the public to be alert to the danger since such warnings were introduced in 2016.

“In general, bears tend to come out of hibernation each spring in a bad mood. They are skinny, they are hungry and they are easily riled up,” said Kevin Short, a naturalist and former professor of cultural anthropology at Tokyo University of Information Sciences.

“At this time of the year, they are not keen to hang out with humans,” he told This Week in Asia.

The recent winter, however, had been particularly challenging, he said.

“Last autumn saw an almost total failure of the nut harvest, especially of beech nuts, and that is what the bears rely on to fatten themselves up just before they go into hibernation,” he said. “The crop was the worst that I can remember and a lot of bears went into hibernation without sufficient energy reserves to get them through the winter.”

As a result, they emerged relatively