Officials in the Japanese city of Utsunomiya made the unprecedented decision to close all 94 elementary and middle schools under municipal control following the community’s first-ever bear encounter, according to a city representative.
The community of 500,000 people, located roughly 100 kilometers north of Tokyo, reported that residents first spotted the bear Saturday evening in a neighborhood close to a local park. The animal has not been captured and was most recently observed early Monday morning approximately half a kilometer away from one of the middle schools.
Japan has experienced a growing number of bear encounters in metropolitan areas, leading officials to establish a special task force this year focused on preventing injuries and fatalities.
Just last week, an incident in the northeastern community of Fukushima resulted in injuries to at least four individuals when a bear attacked. Surveillance video from a local steel manufacturing facility captured footage of a black bear pursuing and knocking down an employee near the building’s entrance.
While Asiatic black bears face vulnerable status worldwide, population estimates suggest their numbers in Japan have increased threefold since 2012, partly due to reduced hunting activity.
Researchers attribute the increase in bear-human encounters to climate-related reductions in natural food sources such as acorns and beechnuts, combined with rural population decline and increasing amounts of unused agricultural land that encourage bears to search for food closer to populated areas.
