Japan City Relieved As Bear Caught After Roaming Streets For Days

A bear that roamed the streets of a Japanese city for four days, forcing mass school closures, was caught on Tuesday, capping a search involving dozens of hunters and police.

Terrified families in the city of Utsunomiya, north of Tokyo, peered through windows as a search mission that included helicopters tried to track down the animal following multiple sightings, including in a shopping arcade, at a university, and at a wholesale market.

On Tuesday, dozens of police officers, hunters, and city officials surrounded a private home where the bear was spotted, an AFP photographer witnessed.

After a successful tranquiliser shot, they captured the animal.

AFP images showed the sedated bear loaded onto a truck.

Issei Okabe, a 37-year-old house painter who lives in an apartment next to the house where the bear was caught, told AFP he was “so relieved”.

“My kid goes to the primary school nearby… and news reports said a bear appeared around there,” he said.

“Then I watched the news, and our house was shown (in the footage)… I was so surprised.

“This is the first time I heard of a wild bear in Utsunomiya.”

The bear sightings had forced the closure of all 94 public primary and middle schools in the city on Monday and Tuesday.

Public broadcaster NHK and other major media reported the bear’s capture as breaking news.

The Shimotsuke Shimbun daily, based in Utsunomiya, said the first and second tranquiliser shots missed the target, but a third successfully hit the animal.

A city official told AFP Monday it was not clear whether there was one bear or more roaming the city.

Separately, an “extremely intelligent” bear that injured four people in Fukushima in northern Japan has remained at large after apparently unlatching a window while evading capture, NHK reported.

A record 13 people were killed by bears in Japan last year, and there has been a jump in sightings as the animals emerge hungry from hibernation.

Bears are thriving thanks in part to an abundance of food — including acorns, deer and boars — under the influence of a warming climate, experts say.