A bear allegedly broke into the home of an elderly couple in northern Japan and rummaged through their fridge, the latest in a growing number of bear intrusions in the country as the animals are driven into towns in search of food.
Mitsuo Matsubara, 87, found a bear in his kitchen on Monday night after hearing a noise and going to investigate, in the town of Shizukuishi in Iwate prefecture, according to Japanese media.
His wife called emergency services. Authorities said no one was hurt.
The animal opened the fridge and scattered its contents nearby, a local police official told the AFP news agency, declining to be named.
Footprints suggested the bear left through a back door beside the kitchen and searched a bin for food waste, the official said. At least four other households in Shizukuishi have reported bear intrusions since Saturday 5 July.
The break-in followed a series of encounters in the same town. A bear made four visits to the home of a 70-year-old resident in the week to Saturday, taking cat food and pickles, police said.
At least five people have reportedly been killed since April in Japan amid rising cases of run-ins with bears. The five deaths all occurred in the Tohoku region and followed a record 13 fatal attacks nationwide in the last fiscal year, according to the environment ministry, Japan Times reported.
Bear sightings have also risen across Japan in recent months, after the animals emerged from hibernation and increasingly strayed into towns and cities.
In June, police, hunters and city officials spent four days trapping a bear that had been roaming Utsunomiya, in Tochigi prefecture, north of Tokyo, forcing schools to close.
Before that, a bear described as “extremely intelligent” attacked four people at two factories in Fukushima and stayed at large for days, Japan Times reported. The animal opened a window and turned on a tap.
Scientists attribute the rise in encounters to a growing bear population, fewer people living in rural areas, and shifts in the availability of the bears’ usual food.
