Agited Bear hurts 2 people in Japan the grocery store while the man killed in a separate attack

Tokyo – An agitated bear traveled the aisles of a grocery store in central Japan, injuring two frightening men and buyers, officials said on Wednesday, while the Japanese media said that a man had been found dead after a separate suspect bear.

More and more wild bears have been identified in Japan in recent years, even in residential areas, due to factors such as Decline of the human population and climate change.

A man was found dead on a mountain on Wednesday in the northern region of iwate after an attack suspected of bear, according to the public broadcaster NHK, citing the police.

In addition, the 4.5 feet adult bear that entered the grocery store on Tuesday evening in Numata, Gunma, north of Tokyo, slightly injured a man in the 1970s and another in sixties, said regional police and firefighters.

The store is close to mountainous areas, but never had bears before, Hiroshi Horikawa, manager of the grocery chain, told AFP.

“He entered the main entrance and stayed inside for about four minutes,” he said. “He almost climbed on the fish of the fish and the damaged glass. In the fruit section, he overturned a bunch of avocados and is stamped on it.”

The store manager told local media that around 30 to 40 customers were inside at the time, and the bear had become agitated when he was fighting to find the exit.

Also on Tuesday, a farmer from the Iwate region was scratched and bitten by a bear, accompanied by a small, just outside his house.

A Spanish tourist on Sunday was attacked by a bear during a bus stop in the picturesque village of Shirakawa-Go in central Japan.

Between April and September, 108 people on a national scale suffered injuries caused by bears, including five deathsAccording to the Ministry of the Environment. There was a record number of Human meetings with bears In Japan last year, with 219 attacks, including six deaths during the 12 months to April 2024.

The impacts of climate change on the food sources of bears and hibernation cycles have been cited by experts as a key factor, but there are also implications because the aging population of Japan shrinks and humans abandon more rural areas.

This depopulation has left “a chance to expand their range”, the biologist Koji Yamazaki, of the University of Agriculture of Tokyo, told CBS News‘Elizabeth Palmer in 2023.

Japan is one of the rare places in the world where a large species of mammal has recovered the habitat – which is good news for the Bears, but if, as biologists suspect, the bear population increases, the country will have to find new ways to protect people and vital animal infrastructures.