A wandering bear that scared residents of a Japanese city just north of Tokyo was captured on Wednesday after several days of panic during which all schools were closed.<\/p>\n
The bear was first spotted on Saturday near a park in Utsunomiya, a city north of Tokyo with a population of half a million.<\/p>\n
City officials have said they received dozens of reports of bear sightings in the following days, including near a library, schools and a community centre, causing them to close all city-run schools Tuesday and Wednesday. <\/p>\n
The city issued bear warnings via social media and dispatched a public announcement vehicle, urging residents to take shelter inside buildings and vehicles if they encounter a bear, and to make sure to lock doors and windows and not to put out garbage at night.<\/p>\n
Officials used a drone to track the animal down after it was spotted at a university campus, causing cancellations of all classes. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, the bear was found on a private property and shot by a veterinarian with a tranquiliser gun, city official Ryuhei Irie said. Nobody was injured.<\/p>\n
City officials used a drone to track the animal down after it was spotted earlier in the day at a university campus, causing cancellations of all classes.<\/p>\n
Officials believe there was only one bear but that they are investigating to be safe, Irie said.<\/p>\n
The bear scare in Utsunomiya was the latest example of encroachment by Japan’s growing bear population in areas with an ageing and declining human population.<\/p>\n
Last week, another bear attacked four people in a residential area of Fukushima, in northeastern Japan, causing moderate injuries.<\/p>\n
The Japanese government in March estimated the country’s overall bear population at around 57,800. Officials have adopted a road map for bear population management that calls for systematic culls.<\/p>\n
The morning’s headlines in 90 seconds, including Trump threatens retaliation after a helicopter\u2019s shot down, and a man flees from Police into an alligator infested swamp. (Source: Breakfast)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A wandering bear that scared residents of a Japanese city just north of Tokyo was captured on Wednesday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[50,2300,111,139,69,147,406],"class_list":["post-469404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-animals","tag-asia","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}