Two people in a city north of Tokyo, Japan were injured after a bear wandered into a grocery store and began rummaging through food, Japanese authorities said on Wednesday.
According to Japan’s national public broadcaster, NHK, police were called at approximately 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday to reports of a bear lying on top of a customer in a supermarket in Numata City, an area northwest of Tokyo.
The bear reportedly attacked a person in the store’s parking lot before assaulting a second inside the supermarket.
Both victims sustained minor, non-life-threatening injuries to their arms and legs, NHK says.
According to AFP, the bear was approximately 1.4 metres long and scoured the store’s fish and sushi selections before stamping on avocados in the fruit section.
The store manager said between 30 and 40 customers were present when the bear attack occurred.
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The store is near a mountainous area. Still, it has never had bears come near before, Hiroshi Horikawa, a management planning official at the grocery store chain, told AFP.
Police said the bear eventually ran away.
Reports of bear attacks in Japan, including in residential neighbourhoods, have become more common in recent years due in part to a declining human population and climate change, which has impacted bears’ access to food sources and, in turn, their hibernation cycles.
In two additional bear attacks on Tuesday, a farmer was mauled by a bear in Gojome Town in northwestern Japan. The victim, a man in his 20s, called police, NHK says, telling authorities he had been bitten and scratched by a bear on his property. He was taken to hospital and treated for minor injuries.
About an hour after the man was attacked, a bear was seen roaming in his neighbour’s yard.
Police said local officials and members of the town’s hunting association caught two bears in the vicinity of the homes later that day.
Japanese media reported on Wednesday that extra police patrols had been deployed to busy commuter routes in the area where the grocery store attack occurred to ensure the safety of children on their way to school.
Authorities said a bear was found in a trap in another area of the city at around 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday. NHK did not specify whether the bear in the trap was the bear responsible for the grocery store attack.
Meanwhile, in another incident in Iwate, northeastern Japan, a person was found dead on a mountain on Wednesday morning.
The body reportedly had wounds resembling scratch marks from a bear, and growling sounds were audible close to where the body was found, Japanese media said.
Between April and September, 108 people in Japan have been injured by bears, and five have been killed, according to an infographic shared by the AFP.
Bear populations are growing in Japan, which is home to two species of bears: the Japanese black bear and the Hokkaido brown bear.
According to Reuters, Japanese bear populations are on the rise, partly due to an aging population of professional hunters struggling to manage them, as well as broader conservation efforts that include hunting bans and a decline in rural human populations, leaving space for bears to expand their habitats.
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