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Bear attacks in Japan have hit a record high, with 13 deaths and more than 220 injuries recorded between April 2025 and March 2026. It is a sharp increase from the same period the previous year, when three people died and 82 were hurt, and as fall approaches, the bears’ peak feeding season, authorities are on high alert.
The rise in human-bear encounters in Japan can be traced back to shrinking rural communities following the World War II when millions of young people began moving to cities. “With the loss of farmland that once buffered settlements from bears, the boundary between towns and forests became more blurred for them,” explained Liam Adcock, a wildlife researcher at the Nagano-based Picchio Wildlife Research Center.
He added that tighter hunting restrictions and a shrinking hunter population have allowed Japan’s two native bear species — the Hokkaido brown bear and the Asiatic black bear — to grow. It is estimated that there are more than 57,000 bears in the country.
