By Joseph Campbell and Chang-Ran Kim<\/p>\n
UTSUNOMIYA, Japan, June 9 (Reuters) – The hunt for a black bear spotted more than \u200ca dozen times in the Japanese city of Utsunomiya continued \u200con Tuesday as all 94 municipal primary and middle schools were closed for a \u200bsecond straight day.<\/p>\n
The adult bear, with an estimated weight of about 100 kg (220 lbs), was last seen early on Tuesday morning some 700 metres (765 yards) from a university campus, according to the city. The same \u200cbear is believed to \u2060have been seen on Saturday evening in the first-ever ursine sighting in the city about 100 km (60 \u2060miles) north of Tokyo.<\/p>\n
Bear attacks, including in urban areas, have increased in Japan, prompting the government to set up a task force this year \u200bto reduce \u200bcasualties. In the 2025 fiscal \u200byear, the country reported a \u200crecord 238 victims, including 13 deaths, according to the environment ministry.<\/p>\n
Asiatic black bears are listed as a vulnerable species globally, but their numbers are estimated to have tripled in Japan since 2012, helped by a decline in hunting.<\/p>\n
An Utsunomiya city official said a group including \u200cmunicipal and prefectural staff, the fire \u200bdepartment and members of the hunters’ association \u200bwere continuing to search for \u200bthe bear. Depending on where the animal is \u200cfound, they will decide whether to \u200btranquilise, shoot, or \u200btrap it for release, the official said.<\/p>\n
Experts say climate change has reduced harvests of bears’ natural food like acorns and \u200bbeechnuts, while the depopulation \u200cof rural areas and the proliferation of abandoned farmland have \u200bemboldened them to seek food near human settlements.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by \u200bChang-Ran Kim; Editing by Kate Mayberry)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Joseph Campbell and Chang-Ran Kim UTSUNOMIYA, Japan, June 9 (Reuters) – The hunt for a black bear…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37514,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[11038,17824,8,33,23996],"class_list":["post-37513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-bear-attacks","tag-black-bear","tag-japan","tag-nihon","tag-utsunomiya"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}