Utsunomiya: A city in Japan has closed 94 schools due to bears. Authorities in Japan's Utsunomiya city government ordered the temporary suspension of classes at all 94 elementary and junior high schools following the first-ever sighting of a bear in the area.
According to Thai News Agency, the city of Utsunomiya, with a population of approximately 500,000, located about 100 kilometers north of Tokyo, reported sightings of an Asiatic black bear in a residential area near a park on Saturday evening. The bear was sighted again late Sunday night/early Monday morning near a street just 500 meters from a junior high school. It remains at large. This marks the first time a bear has been sighted in a residential area of Utsunomiya. As a result, the city government has ordered the temporary suspension of classes at all 94 elementary and junior high schools today for the safety of students.
In recent years, incidents of bears escaping from forests and entering urban areas and communities in Japan have become increasingly frequent, often resulting in encounters with humans, leading to fatalities and injuries. This is due to several factors, including an estimated threefold increase in the black bear population in Japan since 2012; climate change, which has drastically reduced the natural food sources of bears, such as acorns and beech trees; and the declining rural population and the abandonment of agricultural land, which has eroded the natural buffer zone between forests and cities, allowing bears to venture closer to human settlements in search of food.
Due to the increasingly severe situation across the country, the Japanese government established a task force this year to urgently find ways to reduce the rate of injuries and fatalities from bear attacks.