Japan · bear sightings and attacks · updated September 2026
Bears killed 13 people in Japan in the year to March 2026. That is the most on record. In April to June 2026, sightings were 67% above the same months of that record year.
Fiscal 2025, April 2025 to March 2026
Source: Ministry of the Environment. Fiscal 2026 figures are provisional: sightings to 30 June 2026, injuries and deaths to 31 July 2026. A sighting is a report of a bear made to a prefecture. It is not a count of bears.
01
What happened in fiscal 2025?
Sightings were 2.5 times the previous year. 238 people were injured and 13 were killed, the most since the count began in 2008.
Sightings by prefecture, fiscal 2022 to 2025.
The map plays four fiscal years. Each runs from April to the following March. National sightings rose from 11,136 in fiscal 2022 to 50,801 in fiscal 2025.
Two prefectures had nearly half the sightings.
Akita reported 13,592 sightings in fiscal 2025 and Iwate 9,739. Together that is 46% of the national total. The map shows raw counts, not counts per area.
Most of the increase came in autumn.
In most years sightings peak in June. In fiscal 2025 they kept rising. October 2025 alone had 15,998 sightings, more than all of fiscal 2022. The cause was a failed acorn and beechnut crop in the Tohoku region. Bears came down to farms and towns for food.
The same autumn, report by report.
Akita and Iwate publish totals only. Toyama, Niigata, Gunma and Saitama publish each report with a location. The map plays their fiscal 2025 month by month. April 2025: 64 reports. October 2025: 1,795. Yellow marks are people injured.
13 people killed.
Bears killed 13 people between April 2025 and March 2026. The previous high was 6, in fiscal 2023. The count began in 2008.
Bear sightings reported to prefectures
Sightings per month, fiscal 2022 to 2025
People killed by bears, by fiscal year
02
Is fiscal 2026 on the same path?
So far, yes. April, May and June 2026 were each above the same month of fiscal 2025.
Sightings by month, fiscal 2026 against fiscal 2025.
April 2026: 1,787 sightings, against 800 in April 2025. May: 4,581 against 2,528. June: 6,260 against 4,227.
12,628 sightings by the end of June.
Fiscal 2026 had 12,628 sightings by 30 June. Fiscal 2025 had 7,555 at the same point. That is 67% more.
Injuries and deaths have not risen with sightings.
April to July 2026: 53 people injured, against 55 in the same months of 2025. Six people killed, against four. The difference in deaths is too small to draw a conclusion from.
Sightings per month, fiscal 2026 against fiscal 2025
Sightings, running total through the fiscal year
People injured and killed, April to July of each fiscal year
03
Will autumn 2026 be as bad?
Not yet known. The acorn and beechnut crop decides it, and that becomes clear from September.
A high spring count does not predict a bad autumn. At the end of June 2024, fiscal 2024 had 7,601 sightings. Fiscal 2025 had 7,555 at the same point. Fiscal 2024 finished the year at 20,513. Fiscal 2025 finished at 50,801.
Two long-term changes make a bad autumn more likely than it used to be. Japan’s bear population is estimated at about 54,000, up from about 15,000 in 2012. Licensed bear hunters number fewer than 20,000, down from more than 70,000 in the 1970s.
The short-term factor is the autumn food supply. Bears feed on acorns and beechnuts before winter. When the crop fails, as it did in 2025, bears enter towns. The 2026 crop is forming now. The sighting figures for September and October will show whether it has failed.
This page is updated when the Ministry of the Environment publishes new figures.