Authorities in northeastern Japan have discovered the body of a woman shortly after a police officer was injured in a bear attack while searching for a missing person in Iwate prefecture.
The 56-year-old officer suffered wounds to his arm and face after encountering the animal near a stream on Tuesday. He was conscious when taken to hospital. A short distance away, the search team later found the woman’s body. A hunter accompanying the team shot and killed the bear, an adult measuring about 1.3 metres.
According to the Mainichi Shimbun, the police officers were searching for the driver of a vehicle found abandoned with its engine running late Monday afternoon when the attack occurred. If confirmed as a bear attack, this would be Japan’s first such fatality of 2026.
The incident is part of a worrying trend in Japan, where bear encounters have become increasingly dangerous. Since April last year, 13 deaths have been recorded nationwide, with hundreds injured. In Iwate alone, five people were killed between July and October, four of them in October. The last fatal attack before this one occurred on 3 November in neighbouring Akita prefecture.
Experts attribute the rise in bear incidents to dwindling natural food supplies, climate change, and a growing bear population exceeding 50,000. Japan’s shrinking rural population and declining number of hunters—now fewer than half the 1980 figure—hamper control measures. Despite limited resources, authorities culled over 9,000 bears in 2023-24 and more than 4,200 between April and September last year.
The government has deployed the Self-Defence Forces in Akita and the Japan Tourism Agency plans to subsidise protective fences around outdoor baths at traditional inns. Residents in affected areas have taken to carrying bells to scare off animals.
