Since April, 23 people have been attacked in nine prefectures
In Japan the bear emergency knows no borders, and now it also reaches the sea. During the night between Saturday and Sunday, a plantigrade boarded a tuna fishing vessel moored in the port of Shiogama, in Miyagi prefecture, using the access gangway. The animal then fell asleep on the bow of the boat, subsequently falling into the sea and disappearing into the waves. The local police made this known, recalling that the presence of bears had already been reported in the area since Friday. The three crew members who were on the boat took refuge in a locked cabin and remained unharmed. Also in the Miyagi area, in Iwanuma, a train hit a bear late Saturday evening, causing a temporary suspension of service and delays on the Joban line, rail operator JR East said. No crew members or passengers were injured. The animal remained stuck under the train and it took almost two hours to remove the carcass and restore circulation: the disruption involved a total of almost 500 passengers on four trains.
For months now, Japan has been dealing with a real bear alarm, the sightings of which have extended well beyond mountain paths to stations, ports and urban centres. Since April, at least 23 people have been attacked in nine prefectures, three of whom have died. According to experts, the phenomenon is linked to the scarcity of food in the forests, with poor acorn harvests, and the progressive expansion of human settlements on the edges of the forests: conditions that push a growing number of specimens towards towns and infrastructures in search of nourishment, multiplying the risk of close encounters with the population.
