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Captured bear attacks hunter, inflicting serious injury

20 Comments

A captured bear seriously injured a hunter on Sunday in the mountains near Shiroyama City, Ishikawa Prefecture.

Just after 3 p.m., police received an emergency all from a hunting party saying that one of their members, a 50-year-old man, had been seriously injured after a bear attacked him, TBS reported Monday.

The victim was one of a four-man team of hunters who had gone into the mountains at 8 a.m. to hunt for bears. After one hour, the group managed to capture a bear.

In the afternoon, when the hunter approached the captured bear, it lashed out and hit him in the head. He was airlifted to a hospital in Kanazawa and was in a stable condition, police said Monday.

Police officials in the area are asking that others intending to go into the mountains be wary of the potential dangers of encountering wild bears.

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20 Comments
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If they were going into the woods to hunt the bears for game than I have no sympathy, though of course I hope the man recovers completely.

2 ( +7 / -5 )

If you go into the mountains with the express purpose of shooting bears - and then approaching the shot bears - I wouldn't exactly call it an "accident". Common-sense is all it takes: no need for police "warnings" about the dangers of "encountering bears".

6 ( +8 / -2 )

Um...when I hunt stuff, I shoot it.

2 ( +5 / -3 )

The bear was "captured", not shot(full of lead) though likely tranquilized. The previously captured/tranquilized bear then defensively lashed out at the human. This is an inherent danger of "catch-transport-release/relocate". Better to euthanize the bear.

If they had been "game hunters", thEn the bear would already have been on the way to a taxidermist and no longer a danger to local residents nor the hunters. Having seen bears in the wild(while I was well-armed), from a safe downwind distance they are beautiful to watch, but as very territorial creatures they are very dangerous to the hapless( and unarmed) "trespasser". A 45 is required to stop even a young adult bear.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

Though this story has me perplexed, were they "hunting" or "trapping". When used to I go "hunting" back home, nothing "lashed out" and certainly not 3 hours later. These guys caught the bear at 9am and did what with it until the afternoon when it got it own on Mr X aged 50? Bizarre. I wonder about the full story here. If you are going to hunt - then hunt, make your kill clean. This sounds like animal cruelty.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Sometimes you get the bear, and sometimes the bear gets you. Sometimes, you and the bear get each other!

@Carcharodon--Jollies? Well I don't think they did it for charity! Whatever other motive they had, I guarantee that jollies was part of the equation. Its even possible it was the only part.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Bear - 1 Hunter - 0

2 ( +2 / -0 )

I'd like to know how they "captured" it.

In Japan, I've seen vicious steel-jaw leghold animal traps, the kind animals chew off their own leg to escape, of the types now banned in most developing countries. Likely the animal has been in extreme pain and stress for the entire day.

I cannot imagine them using any other ... hence zero sympathy for the killers.

The moon bears are actually an endangered species, although some in Japan kill them for their gall bladders, which have rapidly lost their natural habitat to human development. Some Prefectures allow spring bear hunts as a "preventive measure", based merely upon the premise that there might be a certain number of incidents every year. Incidents which really only happen because the bears are hungry due to the destruction of native deciduous forests my man and the running down of the satoyama (forest border zones in rural areas).

They are being exterminated at the rate of 10-20% per year. In Kyushu and Shikoku they are already virtually extinct.

Animal rights/welfare/conservation, or dare I say it empathy to other species, is one area where parts of Japan are a little backward. Culturally, I put it down to the lack of history of animal management in comparison to commensurate Western nations (... And, no, city girls with doll-like kawaii pooches is no evidence to the contrary).

There are some awful "concentration camps" for bears, far worse even than the aquariums for dolphins etc.

The fear of bears and over reaction to them, and consequently the appeal of stories like this and misreporting, has also been studied. It's irrational.

2 ( +4 / -2 )

To answer the above questions I just went and read several news sites in Japanese. They are equally confusing and non-specific. There seem to be two versions of the story doing the rounds, and each news source is quoting one or the other word-for-word, regardless of the actual circumstances. The bear was trapped in the morning and one hunter who approached it later on got bitten in the face and knocked down. He did not answer his 2-way radio, so the others went to check him out. He was later flown to hospital by helicopter.

Personally I have seen large bear cages set up in the woods, but whether they used a cage or a wire or one of Mr Ed's leg traps in this case, it is not clear.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

According to yahoo! news around 8 in the morning the four men went into the mountains near Hakusan City 'to exterminate bears' (クマの駆除) and after about an hour they captured a bear. Sometime after three in the afternoon it was reported that one of the fearless hunters had approached the captive bear and it had bit him in the face.

http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/videonews/jnn?a=20140505-00000010-jnn-soci

Which raises a number of questions - what were these 'hunters' doing taking it on themselves to 'exterminate' bears in their natural habitat, what were they doing 'capturing' a bear, how did they 'capture' it, why did they keep it 'captured' for 6 hours, what gave the bright spark the notion that it would be a good idea to approach a terrified, possibly injured, wild animal, are any of these hunters going to be prosecuted for animal cruelty and abuse, and if not, why not.

2 ( +4 / -2 )

Bears 1 Hunters 0

0 ( +0 / -0 )

It serves the man right. Leave the bears alone and they are no problem. We often get emails warning of bears spotted around the university. They don't attack anyone and there is no need to kill them.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Wow, hunter gets captured by the game!! So who got hunted? Bear NOT!! Hunter yes!!

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

I am sure they were not exterminating them. Kujo can mean 'clear the area of', 'get rid of', etc., Cleo, not just exterminate.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

I am sure they were not exterminating them. Kujo can mean 'clear the area of', 'get rid of', etc., Cleo, not just exterminate.

yes, 駆除 can mean to 'clear the area of' (usually something harmful or undesirable, like cockroaches in your kitchen or termites in your rafters - and you want rid of all of them, not just one or two token specimens).

They were one hour into the woods, so basically in the bears' territory; can't imagine there would be any need to 'clear the area'.

My take is that 駆除 is hunter talk for 'We wanna get our jollies by shootin' us some critters for the hell of it'.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

Take it from me, as a hunter in Japan; 駆除 means killing an animal. No catch and release here.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

Hunters are paid and encouraged to slaughter "mendokusai" moon bears by some Prefectures, "just in case" they cause trouble.

It's the usual idiocy.

I salute the bear! Gloomy Bear style. Unfortunately, they probably shot it, then cut off it paws and gall bladder.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

The word baka is running through my mind like a wildfire when it comes to those four hunters.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Karma... is a beeyaitch!

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Kuma-chan has right to defend itself from killing. It's self defense and no guilty. Hunter has to accept his Karma.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

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