Panic as bear kills man in Japan

A bear

A bear appears to have killed a man picking mushrooms in a Japanese forest, police said Friday, the latest in a spate of suspected confrontations that could set a record if confirmed.

Increasingly, wild bears have been spotted in Japan in recent years, even in residential areas, due to factors such as a declining human population and climate change.

“A man in his 70s who went missing after going into the woods to harvest mushrooms was found dead,” a local police officer in the northern region of Iwate told AFP.

“We suspect he was attacked by a bear based on scratch marks,” he said. Punch