Man dies after being attacked by bear in Hokkaido mountains

Monday 07th April, 04:06 PM JST

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cleo at 12:42 PM JST - 7th April

I have seen some footage of bison ganging up and attacking several lions to save a youngster.

Haven't we all. What I'll wager you have not seen is footage of bison orginising a hunting party to attack and kill a lion that might or might not have been the lion that ate some other bison's youngster yesterday - which would be the equivalent of what happened here.

I'll agree with you that Mr. Horinuki may have made the mistake of running when he saw the bear - or he may have been so engrossed in his weed-picking that he didn't even notice the bear until he was on top of it.

bebert1 - Yeah, maybe one man saved from a bear, and hundreds more maimed or killed by trigger-happy fools shooting what they thought were bears but turned out to be just other folk trekking through the woods.
notimpressed at 01:44 PM JST - 7th April

Who knows. I do feel bad that the bear was shot, there isnt enough information regarding the area they were in whether it was deep into bear country or not. Both the HorinukiSan and KumaSan are casualties of animals that are competing for the same bit of dirt/mushrooms/forest whatever. I dont see any other reaction ever coming from humans other than removing the threat, just like the bear did. I dont think we are so different form animals in the basis of our actions, just that we are more organised about it. The bear was protecting whatever it thought it was protecting, and so are the humans. And like humans, bears kill things without the intention of eating them. We are just much more proficient at it.
flammenwerfer at 02:03 PM JST - 7th April

I dont buy the line, "it's their territory, Mr Horinuki was trespassing" This man had just as much right to be in the Mtns as any animal, perhaps he lived nearby and it was his territory too. Where is a humans territory? only in cities and designated safe places free from all dangers??

If there is menace in any "territory" you remove it. Be it a criminal in a city or a rogue bear attacking humans in the Mtns. Sucks for the bear, but such is life. Must be great living in a world with rose tinted glasses....
Sarge at 02:20 PM JST - 7th April

Damn bears.

"The problem is humans, not the bears"

Nah, the problem is not enough Japanese people have guns to shoot the bears.
cleo at 02:46 PM JST - 7th April

flammenwerfer - No one is saying that Mr. Horinuki was 'trespassing'. That's a legal term, nothing to do with wild animals. We all have as much 'right' as any animal to be in the mountains, but surely we also need to have the common sense not to get ourselves into scrapes with potentially dangerous wild animals we can expect to find there? Just like we all have the 'right' to cross the road, but only a fool does so without watching out for traffic - which also has the right to be there, moves a lot faster than most pedestrians and tends to win in any fight involving vehicle vs human. Just because a jay-walker gets knocked down, it doesn't necessarily mean there's a 'rogue' car out there that poses a menace to other pedestrians and needs to be eliminated.
notimpressed at 03:47 PM JST - 7th April

If there is a rogue car-driver who does a hit and run, you can bet we'd want him removed form the picture too. Bears are not all that numerous that you would 'expect' to find them strolling everywhere theres a mountain. Safe to say also, that its unlikely HorinukiSan would ever in his right mind get into a scrape with a bear on purpose. You make it sound like he attacked the bear and the bear acted in self defence. Other way around eccept he got his face chewed off. If any animal -furry or clothed- killed someone you knew, didnt eat or even bother to rob them- just killed them for being in the vicinity, are you telling me you wouldnt want to stop them doing it again? Have sympathy for the bears in china, not this one who was agro' enough to kill someone, and unlucky enough to get shot for it. Just like HorinukiSan was unlucky enough to be picking mushies in the vicinity of a particularly bitey bear.
OldGuy at 03:49 PM JST - 7th April

Man dies after being attacked by bear in Hokkaido mountains

What's everyone fussing about? Man goes into mountains, man dies at the paws of a bear. It's been happening for millenium. R.I.P, the both of em.
Nessie at 03:58 PM JST - 7th April

i spend my summers working around bears, both brown and black. if you know how to conduct yourself around them attacks can generally be avoided. while being mauled is no way to go i have a feeling that this guy was probably doing something wrong.

He was raiding the bear's larder, which is what sansai-tori is. That can be enough to get a brown bear irked. Almost all attacks in Hokkaido are on oldsters out picking wild veggies in spring.

So the real culprit here is vegetarianism.
Nessie at 04:09 PM JST - 7th April

Police said an associate of Horinuki's found him collapsed on Sunday afternoon with bite marks over his face and called for an ambulance, but the company employee died shortly afterward.

So not an attack out of hunger, it seems, unless it was a case of incapacitate and bury for later.
anderstungtwist at 12:57 AM JST - 8th April

That bear was also very hungry after hibernating.
Nessie at 01:44 AM JST - 8th April

Ander,

Read it again. The bear chewed his face and left him alive. I.e., didn't eat him.
Fredster at 10:52 AM JST - 8th April

It becomes obvious that - according to some of the responses to my post yesterday - some her just like being nit-pickers because it floats their boat...

My point was that the average Boo-Boo that many here associate with are a different breed than the bears up north here in Japan...

In all my outdoor experience in Canada around bear populations, bears tend to be - for the most part - scared of humans and human contact - rarely attacking without severe provocation or in defense of a perceived threat to their young...

The obvious exception are the larger more territorial kings of their respective territories like Grizzly, Kodiaks & Polar Bears... I assume that this is because they are at the top of the food chain and dominate their respective environs...

In this way the bears in Hokkaido are much the same way - territorial, protective & AGGRESSIVE... They do attack humans without provocation and will simply attack, mame and leave the offender to die with no interest in eating them...

Sorry I placed human emotions on this but the main point was that the bear was shot because " Once they have attacked a human and got away with it these bears tend to be repeat offenders "...

And that's why the locals send out somebody to shoot him - which at first flush would sound like a difficult endeavor - except that as stated above - all the hunter needed to do was walk into the bears territory and make a little noise and he will come pounding over the hill to boldly chew the perpetrators face off... BLAAAAMOO... No more bear problem...

Cheers

These bears
walk at 10:13 PM JST - 8th April

fredster don't you think it would be a good idea to educate people to stop creating this type of behavior in bears? thats what bugs me about your posts is you seem to feel that just killing the aggressive bears is a solution to the problem, how about not conditioning the bears to be aggressive in the first place? you seem to have some sort of experience around hokkaido do they have any sort of public awareness program on how to act around bears? the article mentions nothing about it.
also what some people view as "aggressive" behavior is actually curiosity but then our reactions scare them and thats why they attack. and most bear attacks on humans are defensive or possibly aggressive, only a very small number of attacks in history have been predatory. bears are honestly pretty lazy and people are just too hard of a target to actively hunt.
Sarge at 11:16 PM JST - 8th April

"That bear was also very hungry after hibernating"

Bears are so much smarter than humans. In winter, dumb humans go out slippin' and slidin' in the cold and the snow, while bears find a good warm cave and sleep and dream about eating Goldilocks until the snow melts.
VoXman at 11:26 AM JST - 12th April

Who knows. I do feel bad that the bear was shot, there isnt enough information regarding the area they were in whether it was deep into bear country or not. Both the HorinukiSan and KumaSan are casualties of animals that are competing for the same bit of dirt/mushrooms/forest whatever. I dont see any other reaction ever coming from humans other than removing the threat, just like the bear did. I dont think we are so different form animals in the basis of our actions, just that we are more organised about it. The bear was protecting whatever it thought it was protecting, and so are the humans. And like humans, bears kill things without the intention of eating them. We are just much more proficient at it.

Once a wild animal gets the taste of human flesh, generally they have to put the animal down.