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EPISODE · Jun 12, 2026

Japan's love-hate relationship with bears

from Access Asia · host FRANCE 24 English

This week, a town north of Tokyo shut down nearly 100 schools following a spate of bear sightings. In another Japanese town last week, a bear attacked four people, opened a water tap and unlatched a window to escape a building it had been trapped in. So are bears becoming a bigger threat? FRANCE 24's Yuka Royer speaks with Kazuhiko Maita from the Institute for Asian Black Bear Research and Preservation, who has survived nine bear attacks himself, about what's behind the recent crisis in Japan.  

Episode metadata supplied by the publisher feed · Published Jun 12, 2026

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