Sunday, November 1, 2020

Beware of Bears!


Between April and September of this year, 13,670 bears were spotten in the wild in Japan. Bears are coming in contact with people more and more recently, with two women dying after being attacked by bears in October. One woman in her 70's was in Niigata Prefecture and another in her 80's in Akita Prefecture. In Ishikawa Prefecture, three bears were shot to death in October.  Two had attacked people and one had entered a shop. 


Asian black bears are found on Japan's main island of Honshu.  The larger species of brown bears inhabit the island of Hokkaido. Experts say that there is a less than normal availability of wild tree nuts, such as beech nuts and acorns, causing bears to move closer to areas inhabited by humans in search of food before their winter hibernation. 


Are there any wild animals where you live?


5 comments:

kiwikid said...

That is sad to hear the bears are shot but I can understand why. It sounds like more trees need to be planted to give them a good food supply. I think the only dangerous animal kind of thing, near here would be the snakes and I haven't seen one yet. Don't want to either 😀😀

Queeniepatch said...

The best thing we can do is make sure there is food in the forest - don't pick the things the bears want to eat, like baby bamboo shoots, and leave waste produce from farming (fallen apples eat) in the forest for them to feed on, then they will not need to come 'shopping' in the villages. It's a good idea in principal but who's going to do it?
Wild animals in Tokyo? Well, there are rats, crows and occasionally a monkey.

Lauriejo said...

It is sad that we are crowding so many animals out of their habitat. We are lucky to have many "critters" here in suburbia. Just in our yard we see: squirrels, skunks, raccoons, opossums, foxes, and deer. Fortunately no bears.

Jeanie said...

I suspect there are some up at the lake -- certainly deer (deer around here, too, though I don't think of them as wild). Coyotes, so I'm told. Bears -- that's a little creepy!

Leonore Winterer said...

I'm not sure if we have wild bears in Germany. I know one came over from Austria a couple years ago and killed some cattle, it was called a 'problem bear'. We do have wolves in some areas, but they stay away from people!