Japan police probe another suspected fatal bear attack amid rising deaths

Japanese police are investigating another suspected fatal bear attack, a local official told AFP on Tuesday, as the number of such deaths remains unusually high. Authorities in northern Aomori prefecture said on Monday that a man found dead on a mountain that day may have been attacked by a bear.

Bear attacks have been on the rise in Japan in recent years. Scientists attribute this trend to a spike in the animals' population and a declining number of people in rural areas. Fatal maulings in the last three months have jumped fivefold compared to last year, according to government data. Five people have died due to bear attacks since April, according to separate statistics from the environment ministry.

Publicly available ministry data, dating back to the fiscal year ending March 2018, shows that this year is the first to see more than two deaths in the period from April to June. A record 13 people were killed by bears in Japan last year. There has been a jump in encounters as the animals emerge hungry from hibernation. In the year to March, bear sightings nationwide topped 50,000, more than double the previous record set two years earlier, according to official data.

Earlier this month, dozens of police officers, hunters and city officials were deployed in the city of Utsunomiya, north of Tokyo, to catch a bear that roamed the streets for four days, forcing mass school closures. In the Fukushima region this month, a bear attacked four people at two factories and in a residential area before escaping hunters.

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Police are still investigating the cause of the man's death, but bear bite marks had been found on his body.