Bear attacks truck on forest road in Hokkaido, police call for caution

NEMURO, Hokkaido -- A brown bear attacked a light truck on a forest road here on April 28, and the Hokkaido Prefectural Police have released dashcam footage of the vehicle, calling for caution.

The footage was captured at around 1 p.m. Two men were driving along a forest road in the suburbs of Nemuro to pick Allium ochotense, a type of wild onion, when they saw what appeared to be a parent and cub brown bear, one on each side of the road, and slowed down.

A brown bear about 1.2 meters long, believed to be the mother, charged at the light truck from the right. When the driver stopped the vehicle and tried to back up, the bear rammed headfirst into the left side of the windshield, breaking its wiper. He tried to scare off the animal by honking the horn, but the bear raised its paw and hit the vehicle a second time, cracking the windshield diagonally.

The driver accelerated and tried to outrun it, but the bear persistently chased the car. The dashcam recorded voices saying, "Did you see that?" and "It's coming, it's coming, oh my god."

Masami Yamanaka, a special researcher at the Shiretoko Nature Foundation, commented, "The car got between the parent and cub. Since the car approached before the parent bear could escape with its cub, the bear likely decided that it had no choice but to attack."

Nemuro Police Station is urging people to be careful when encountering bears, saying, "Never get out of the van when something like this happens."

(Japanese original by Hiroaki Homma, Nemuro Bureau)