A wave of bear break-ins has rattled communities in northern Japan, with at least 14 households in the town of Shizukuishi reporting intrusions over the past two weeks. The encounters have grown increasingly brazen: an 87-year-old man found a bear in his kitchen on July 13, and another elderly resident struggled for 30 seconds to hold a sliding door shut against an animal that entered his home while he slept.
The bears have targeted food with growing familiarity, opening refrigerators and scattering their contents, raiding a confectionery shop for doughnuts, and returning to one house five times for sweets. One animal broke into a farmhouse four times to eat cattle feed.
Bear intrusions into populated areas are rising across Japan, where at least five people have been killed by bears since April. Authorities in June mounted a four-day hunt for a bear that terrorized a town north of Tokyo.