Nemuro, Japan: A body was found on Friday on a mountain on the Shiretoko Peninsula in Hokkaido, in northern Japan, where a man had been missing since being attacked by a bear on Thursday. The Hokkaido prefectural police are investigating whether it is the missing man.
Police said the man and his friend, both in their 20s, started climbing Mount Rausu, which straddles the towns of Shari and Rausu, from the Shari side about 5am on Thursday. While descending, the man was attacked by a brown bear about 11.10am.
The friend reportedly ran about 200 metres toward him after the man called out the friend’s name. The friend saw the man fighting off the bear, while bleeding from his leg, before being dragged away into a bush along the trail.
The friend reported the attack to the police and was uninjured when he was rescued by a police helicopter. Police called the man’s phone about 5pm, but there was no answer.
Police and the Hokkaido prefectural government closed the three trails leading to Mount Rausu after the attack. Three helicopters were used to evacuate about 70 climbers and others on the trails. However, several climbers were reportedly still at a campsite near the summit.
The man was not found during Thursday’s search. On Friday, 16 people, including police and hunters with two dogs, started climbing the mountain from the Shari side to continue the search.
A brown bear catches a salmon in a river on the Shiretoko Peninsula in Hokkaido, northern Japan.Credit: AP
Based on location data from the man’s smartphone, the police also used a drone to intensively search the area. A wallet and a shirt with blood on it were found near the site of the attack.
Mount Rausu, which has an elevation of about 1660 metres, is located on the peninsula, a World Heritage site. Every year, more than 5000 climbers visit the Shiretoko Mountain Range, which includes Mount Rausu.
According to the prefectural government and others, this is the first recorded bear attack in the mountain range since 1962, when such data became available.
But there has been a series of reports of brown bears approaching climbers near Mount Rausu.
The Yomiuri Shimbun via The Washington Post
Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.