After his body was discovered on a mountain in northern Japan last week, authorities are looking into the death of a college student from a suspected bear attack. This could be the most recent in a string of incidents that have occurred across the nation this year. The university student was discovered close to a dead brown bear’s body and in the same location where a group of guys narrowly avoided a brown bear assault two days earlier, according to the Mainichi newspaper, which cited police.
The bones of the student were discovered on Thursday atop Mount Daisengen, which is located on Hokkaido’s lower peninsula—the northernmost of the country’s four main islands. The Mainichi reported on Saturday that Hokkaido police had recognized the remains as those of Kanato Yanaike, a 22-year-old Hakodate college student who had vanished during a climbing trip earlier in the week.
It was discovered that Yanaike’s death was caused by hemorrhagic shock. The discovery of a brown bear carcass close to the remains prompted officials to look into the possibility of a bear attack.
Yanaike had earlier discussed his intentions to go climbing on Mount Daisengen on October 29, according to police, who informed The Mainichi that the student’s car was later discovered close to a trailhead on the mountain. His remains were later discovered close to the location where, on October 31, a brown bear mauled three persons. In the end, those men were able to drive the beast away, but not before two of them were hurt.
According to The Mainichi, investigators looking into Yanaike’s death are looking into the possibility that this brown bear attack was only one of many that it may have carried out. According to the publication, the Hokkaido Research Organization stated it would investigate the stomach contents found inside the bear carcass.
According to government data cited by the Kyodo news agency last month, bear attacks in Japan are on the rise this year. Between April and September 2023, bear assaults harmed 109 individuals, mostly in the northern region of Honshu, the country’s biggest island. Of those, two suffered fatal injuries, one of them in Hokkaido.
Hokkaido police were looking into the death of a fisherman in May who may have been attacked by a bear at a lake in the island’s northern region, across from Mount Daisengen. After a human head was discovered nearby, they declared at the time that they thought the individual had been mauled and decapitated by a brown bear, Kyodo reported.
The Associated Press stated that in August, hunters in a remote area of northern Japan killed an elusive brown bear known as “Ninja” after it attacked at least sixty-six cows. Furthermore, three bears were put to death in early October, according to reports from local Japanese authorities and the media, when they broke into a tatami mat factory in the nation’s north. The AP reports that the bears camped out inside the factory for nearly a whole day before being apprehended.
Local governments in Japan have proposed that the increase in bear attacks this year may be partially attributed to bear population growth surpassing food supplies; in October, Kyodo reported that an abundance of acorns and beech nuts in 2022 might have played a role in the population growth. Officials claim that because the nut season this year was sparse, Japanese bears have been exploring areas outside of their typical range and, in certain situations, inside of homes in search of food in order to be ready for hibernation.