The “man-eating bears” are moving at the worst pace ever… Experts warn that this year’s bears are different, an anomaly.

Fatalities are occurring at a faster pace than in previous years.

Urban bears are increasing rapidly, with some individuals thought to have wintered in urban areas.

″Man-eating bears″ are on the move again this year. And at a record-breaking pace.

In April alone, there were 138 bear sightings in Miyagi Prefecture, 5.3 times as many as the previous year, and 395 sightings in Akita Prefecture, 4.6 times as many as the previous year.

On April 21, the body of a 55-year-old woman was found in the mountains of Shiwa Town, Iwate Prefecture. The body had claw marks and animal bite marks, and the damage was apparently quite severe. It was later determined that the cause of death was an attack by a bear. A male sergeant from the Shiwa Police Station of the Iwate Prefectural Police, who was searching the area, was also attacked by a bear and sustained injuries to his face and arm.

The map below summarizes the damage in FY 2013 (April 2013-March 2014) and the damage in April 2014. Last fiscal year, which was the worst on record with a total of 238 victims and 13 deaths, the first fatalities did not occur until June. This year, however–as of May 14, two people have already died.

In recent years, bears called “urban bears,” which live in and around urban areas, have been considered dangerous. Urban bears do not live deep in the mountains, their natural habitat, but rather appear in rural urban areas with impunity. They attack humans who encounter them, and in the worst case scenario, they can kill them.

The mere fact that such fearsome individuals are on the rise is a threat, but Kazuhiko Yoneda, director of the Japan Black Bear Research Institute, sounds the alarm, saying, “I have been watching bears for more than half a century, and this year’s urban bears are completely different from the previous urban bears.

This year, bears have been sighted in urban areas such as Sendai City in Miyagi Prefecture and Koriyama City in Fukushima Prefecture since April. It is highly likely that these animals did not migrate from the mountains to human settlements, but rather overwintered around urban areas. This is because if the bears had come down from the mountains, it would be difficult for bears that are 1.5 meters long and 120 kg in weight to reach urban areas tens of kilometers away without being spotted along the way.

The bears have evolved to the point where they are not only accustomed to living in human settlements, but are even wintering near them.

Originally, bears were timid creatures that feared humans. However, urban bears are not afraid of humans and come to eat persimmon nuts and other fruits in private gardens in broad daylight.

FRIDAY obtained a video of an Urban Bear that appeared near Kombumori Station in Nemuro City, Hokkaido, in May of this year.

The video shows the bear noshing across a two-lane road where cars are passing by. As it strode with ease, one could sense that the Urban Bear was comfortable with cars, let alone humans.

Why are there so many urban bears? Professor Yoshikazu Sato of Dairy Farming University, an expert on bear ecology, explains the reasons.

Last year we had a bad harvest of acorns, which are the bears’ food, and they were unable to secure food in the mountains, their natural habitat. As the bears came to the mountain to seek persimmons and chestnuts near human settlements as bait, they learned that they could eat food here. I believe that they recognized the area near the village as their living area. In mountain towns and villages, the population is decreasing and aging, and there are fewer threats from humans. This is probably one of the reasons bears are moving into human settlements.”

A huge bear that does not seem to be coming out of hibernation

This year’s bears have one more characteristic. They are so huge that it is hard to believe that they are out of hibernation.

Normally, bears lose 20 to 40% of their body weight when they come out of hibernation. They use energy for hibernation, so they lose fat and their skin becomes flabby. However, some of the bears sighted this year weighed more than 100 kg, and had resilient skins.

It is thought that due to the mild winter in Hokkaido and the Tohoku region, the amount of energy consumed during hibernation may have been low. This means that they are starting their activities in a healthy state despite the end of hibernation. This is probably why bears are more active this year than usual,” said Yoneda.

In fact, there have been a series of sightings of giant bears in various locations.

A brown bear captured in the Nagashima district of Tomamae-cho, Hokkaido in April of this year is believed to be approximately 2.2 meters long and weigh 330 kg. The photo below, taken in Okoppe Town, Hokkaido on May 2 this year, also shows a brown bear, which is too large to have come out of hibernation.

Tetsuya Kurosawa, the photographer, also noticed a “change” in the bear this year.

I think it weighed about 250 to 300 kg. I use a fixed-point camera, and in April, I saw a bear weighing about 250 kg. In previous years, the individuals have been much smaller and skinnier. That being said, this year it seems like we’ve had a whole lot of fat bears active since early spring.”

Moreover, experts fear that the bears, which have become accustomed to human habitat and have grown huge, will become more ferocious in the future. The reason for this is “mating season. Mr. Yoneda points out, “Bears mate in early summer.

The mating season for bears begins in early summer, around the beginning of May, and it will be in full swing from now on. During the mating season, males expand their range of behavior in search of females. Because males in the mating season have the habit of finding female bears with cubs and preying on them to stimulate the female bear’s mating season, female bears in the mating season become aggressive in order to protect their cubs. This increases both the risk of people encountering bears and of being attacked.”

How should we deal with these “fearless bears,” which have become huge and temperamental? A person in charge of the environmental division of the Shiwa Town Office in Iwate Prefecture, where the fatal accident occurred, said, “We, as a local government, are aware that bears can be dangerous.

We have a system in place to set traps in areas where bears are likely to appear, and to arrange for emergency hunting by local hunting clubs if there are reports of bear sightings. Iwate Prefecture has also introduced a map application that pinpoints information on bear appearances. When entering areas where bears are believed to live or have appeared, we ask that you take such precautions as always having more than one person in the area and wearing bear repellent bells.

Professor Sato also warns that even in the private sector, “measures need to be taken to prevent bears from entering areas where people live.

We must not leave unneeded persimmon trees and farm products, which are bait for bears, unattended. Unwanted trees should be cut down and farm products should be stored in barns, not outdoors. In recent years, some people do not report bears when they see them. If a bear appears, we must always report it and drive it away from human villages. The behavior of bears escalates when they perceive a human village as a ″living area″. Before that happens, it is important to make them realize that human settlements are not habitats.”

On May 19, a body with no upper body was found in Okutama Town, Tokyo. There were traces of large animals in the vicinity.

Man-eating bears, which have become both ferocious and huge, appear one after another and attack human settlements. This nightmarish scenario is beginning to become a reality.

From the June 5 and 12, 2026 issue of FRIDAY