No picnic: How to survive a bear encounter in Japan

Takuya Terabashi, director of the Sasama Nursery School, holds a can of bear spray at the nursery in Hanamaki, Iwate prefecture on October 24, 2025. - AFP

AKITA, Japan: Hajime Nakae, Japan's leading medical expert in treating bear attack victims, knows all too well the damage that the powerful animals can inflict on humans.

With a record 13 people killed this year in Japan, the professor of emergency and critical medicine at Akita University Hospital advises what to do in an encounter.