Bear sightings reported in Sapporo

Schools have been urged to make sure children are supervised at all times when they are outside.

When was the last time a human was killed, or even attacked, by a bear in Japan? It seems like the authorities are being overly alarmist about this. Fear mongering. The odds of a Hokkaido resident being attacked by their neighbor's dog are significantly higher.

Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, I spent a lot of time in the woods and was within a few feet of brown bear on at least two occasions. Our parents never felt the need for us to be 'supervised at all times when [we were] outside'.

I'm surprised to see that there are any bears at all left in Hokkaido. The gov't must have missed one.

Saw on TV where they had a dart-shooting tranquilizer rifle in their hunt for one bear in Sapporo. Wouldn't like to see them shoot and kill a bear just because it was looking for food in trash containers. Hibernating season is approaching and those dudes are probably trying to fill their bellies for the winter ... Just don't kill them 'cause they're there ...

When was the last time a human was killed, or even attacked, by a bear in Japan?

That was last year as far as I remember, also in Hokkaido. A man picking moutain vegetables got attacked by a bear in front of his wife. He died.

On Friday, authorities placed cages containing honey in parks in the two wards.

place few cans of Sapporo Beer as well !

At least four people were killed and 80 wounded in bear attacks between April and September 2010, topping 2009's total of 64 attacks.

The sightings are real and the bears are grizzly types. I am a Miyanomori resident where these bears are now. Unfortunately, they are a very real danger to people. There are usually 3+ deaths a year in Hookaido from bear attacks on trails. The threat therefore is not fear mongering.

@Foxie, @Parmen I stand corrected. I was wrong, you are right. Apparently these bear do pose a real danger.

Now I wish there were a delete button...

Better hurry and kill them all lest we spot any more.

tranq them, tag them, release them back in the woods. if they show up again then move them to the other side of the island. if they show up in populated places again. then you kill them.

i ride my suzuki and hike in the mountains of western kanagawa. i see signs warning of bear all the time. only animals i see though are the monkeys and deer.

Though Hokkaido is near Russia, having bears in it is not a big surprise.

Don't they sell bear strength pepper spray in Hokkaido? It's great deterrent when I go fishing in Alaska or when there's bosozuku. The police don't do anything anymore. LAMF's

I wonder if playing dead works for these bears, I'm going to Sapporo in a couple of weeks and the last thing I want is being attacked by Yogi.

Every year people are kiiled and injured by bears. There were 149 injuries last year and 50 to then end of August this year, with most incidents in Iwate, Nagano, and Akita http://www.env.go.jp/nature/choju/docs/docs4/injury-qe.pdf I thought would not hunt them with just a club if it were me;-)

I read elswhere that of these injuries there were about 2 or 3 deaths per year in recent years. http://www.japanbear.sakura.ne.jp/cms/2011/05/post_40.html And in response to Juan Rodriguez's question, according to the following article in Japanese, no apparently pretending to be dead is not effective, and there are no reports in Hokkaido at least of the effective use of bear spray. The article recommends carrying a bear bell (since about a third of incidents occur when humans and bears happen upon each other accidently), and a "nata" or machete (since about 25% of incidents are hungry bears looking to prey on humans). It also says that there were one death every two years in Hokkaido (12 deaths in the years 1970 to 2001) http://www.yasei.com/jittai.html

Some of you are getting your bear species muddled. Blakiston's line separates the bears in Hokaido from the ones in Mainland Japan. Honshu and Shikoku bears are Black bears (tsukinowa guma) which are about 80-100kg, and aren't usually very violent, and not really big enough to kill. They are the cute little bears that you see in the Chinese circuses and zoos with the white neck. These are the only bears you will see while hiking or painting in the Japan alps. Still bears though, so not to be messed with, but hornets or snakes are much more of a danger.

Hokkaido bears are Brown bears (hi guma), which are 200-300kg, related to Grizzlies and Kodiaks, and don't ride bikes in circuses. Very dangerous, not the kind of thing you want wandering around a city park.

Blakiston's line separates most of the animal species in Japan, squirrels, moles, foxes, monkeys, insects and even some birds. Worth reading about if you are at all interested in Japanese biology.

Who cares? Here in West japan the bears are small and cause no trouble. But for seniors there are tannoy that say "help help here come the bears, it's the hair bear bunch" when they are spotted.

Lunchbox, you're right, two major dangers should be considered while hiking in Japan: giant hornets (suzumebachi - the sparrow hornet, called like this for the obvious reason of being as big or bigger than a sparrow) in the summer, and the bears especially in the winter... I never met a bear yet, but got stung once by a huge suzumebachi... it was an extreme, debilitating pain. Japan is a mostly uninhabited mountainous country, so no wonder there are so many attacks.

Humans encroach on wild animals' habitat and then get upset when the animals go walkabout & scavenge for food because we've destroyed feeding grounds. We're their worst enemy. Scared of a bear??

It is very sad that to see the Japanese attitude toward wildlife remaining so backward. They could have easily tranquilized, tagged and relocated this bear to another mountain instead of killing it.

Very sad indeed!