MORIOKA, (Japan): An adult bear entered a 69-year-old man’s house in Shizukuishi, Iwate Prefecture, on Thursday (July 9). The bear fled the house after the man noticed it and shouted.
However, it returned shortly after and attempted to open the back door with its paws.
No injuries have been reported.
According to one of the man’s sons, the man was sleeping in the living room on the house’s first floor after attending to a cow as it gave birth late at night on Wednesday.
The man was reportedly so tired that he had forgotten to lock the back door after he returned. At about 1.30am on Thursday, he felt something breathing on his face and opened his eyes to find a bear right in front of him.
He yelled, which startled the bear, causing the animal to run out of the house. However, it entered again, and the man shouted to scare it away a second time.
He locked the back door, but the bear came back. When one of his sons shined a flashlight on the bear from the second floor of another building, it could be heard growling.
A bear, believed to be the same one that entered the house on Thursday, had been spotted repeatedly on the man’s premises in recent days.
Around 15kg of feed placed in a shed on the premises was found to have been consumed.
The Shizukuishi town government set up a box trap on the man’s premises. - The Yomiuri Shimbun
