Japan officials hunt bear that raided couple’s fridge amid string of break-ins | Japan
Authorities are searching for a bear who sneaked into an elderly couple’s home and raided their refrigerator, fearing he might be behind 14 burglaries in a Japanese town in the past two weeks.
On Monday evening, 87-year-old Mitsuo Matsubara came across a large Asian black bear when he went to investigate a noise in his kitchen. His the refrigerator was openand food was scattered on the floor. His wife called the police.
Thefts were reported at five locations in the northeastern town of Shizukuishi, leading authorities to suspect a bear might be a repeat offender. They set box traps, put electric fences around homes that were repeatedly targeted, and assigned patrols to warn people about the bear.
“It’s unusual for a bear to enter the same place multiple times,” said Shiho Chida, a bear expert at the nature department in Iwate prefecture, where the town is located. “It’s possible this is the same animal, so we want to capture it as quickly as possible.”
So far, a bear has entered buildings on an area farm four times in the past few weeks and has been caught obtaining milk-based cattle feed. He was caught on camera trying to open the sliding door of a farmhouse in the middle of the night, but escaped after the farmer shined a light on the door and shouted loudly.
The farmer began spreading a homemade anti-bear mixture containing Japanese mustard around the entrances, hoping to deter unwanted intruders.
On Friday last week, another resident came home from shopping to find a bear in her house, near the room where her elderly father was sleeping. The animal ran outside when it crashed into a nearby door. But the bear tried to get in, and the man spent about 30 seconds holding the sliding door closed while he stood on his hind legs and tried to get in. He described the bear as being about 1.65 meters tall.
The next evening, a woman noticed a bear stirring food in her kitchen, and on Sunday the bear entered a Japanese confectionery store and took a donut from the refrigerator.
The bear’s sweet tooth forced him to enter a house five times; here he ate cookies, candy and candy. KarintoA Japanese dessert made from fried dough and coated with sugar.
There have been a record number of bear attacks and deaths in Japan in recent years. Experts believe that declining populations in rural areas have made it less scary for bears to come to towns, and that many people have now lost their fear of humans.
