Shiretoko Peninsula's plastic waste said luring Hokkaido bears closer to humans
Plastic bags, bottles and other waste are becoming a serious problem for the bears on Hokkaido's Shiretoko Peninsula, and conservationists warn they could begin approaching humans if they acquire a taste for garbage. The Shiretoko Peninsula is a World Heritage Site and has one of ...
Genetic study implicates humans in demise of prehistoric cave bear 20,000 years ago
Genetic research that reconstructed the past population dynamics of the cave bear, a prominent prehistoric denizen of Europe, implicates Homo sapiens rather than climate cooling in the Ice Age extinction of these brawny plant-loving beasts. Scientists said on Thursday they obtained genome data from 59 ...
Brown bear shot and killed in Sapporo after roaming around residential area
Residents were frightened of the bear, which seemed accustomed to humans and was unafraid of patrol sirens. It was often spotted wandering into gardens and eating fruit.
Having taken a dip, bears spotted in places in Japan they've not been seen for years
Rumiko Hamaya, 52, of Nemuro, the easternmost city in Hokkaido, was surprised to see a brown bear swimming in nearby Lake Furen in mid-August. “It might have been swimming for about 15 minutes, dog paddling for about 800 meters,” Hamaya said. One of her colleagues ...
Japan's bears are widely vilified and little understood
On Aug. 6, the BBC aired a story about four Ussuri brown bears being successfully transported from a museum in Hokkaido to a wildlife park in England. In the story, a British organization called Wild Welfare said it had become "concerned" about the animals' ...
Hoping to promote coexistence, a resort town in a mountainous area of Nagano Prefecture is using a rare breed of dog to chase bears away from areas where people live. Karuizawa had been struggling since 2000 with bears entering the town to scavenge for food, ...
As Akita deals with surge in bear sightings, some point to a human cause
Far from Tokyo's bright lights and noisy streets Kaori Kawashima walks cautiously on her way to the nearest convenience store in rural Akita Prefecture, where danger might be lurking in the shadows. "I don't think bears come close to where I live, but there's no ...
Russian nuclear bombers fly near North Korea in rare show of force, prompting fighter scrambles
Russian nuclear-capable strategic bombers have flown a rare mission around the Korean Peninsula at the same time as the United States and South Korea conduct joint military exercises that have infuriated Pyongyang. Russia, which has said it is strongly against any unilateral U.S. military action ...
Akita ups vigilance for bears after woman found mauled to death
Akita Prefecture is stepping up vigilance against bears attacking people in the wake of the apparent mauling death of a local woman over the weekend. Masako Oishi, a 61-year-old assistant nurse from the eastern Akita city of Senboku, was found dead shortly after noon ...
Bears encroach on blurred human boundaries
It is puzzling that the black bears have become aggressive recently, given their previous inclination to retreat when confronted by humans. My theory is that winters are shorter and that means shorter hibernations and more active time spent consuming dwindling supplies of food. They ...
Bears: close encounters of the furred kind
As my wife and I listened to a news bulletin in June about bears killing four people in Akita Prefecture, she gave me one of those silent looks pregnant with meaning. Let me try to translate as best I can: It was one of ...
Akita police start patrols to keep people from entering woods after possible bear attacks
About 50 police officers began patrolling a mountainous area in Kazuno, Akita Prefecture, on Saturday to prevent bamboo shoot hunters and other people from entering woods where a string of likely bear attacks on humans occurred. The bodies of four people believed to have been ...
