ツキノワグマの襲撃から生き延びた方法

ツキノワグマの襲撃から生き延びた方法

Yesterday, I had one of the scariest experiences I’ve ever had in my life in the mountains. No, the the scariest, actually. A bear charged me, breathing heavily and coming right at me. In this video, I’ll tell you the story of this bear attack, how I survived, what I did right, what I did wrong, what I learned from it, and of course, what you can learn from it about the bears in Japan. Hi, my name is Quinnland, and I am a professional guide up here in northern Japan. I’ve seen bears a number of times in the wilds out here, but until yesterday, every single time I saw a bear, it was basically already running away by the time I noticed it. Whereas yesterday, well, it was quite different. Yesterday, right at about this time, about 100 meters or so that way, I saw my life flash before my eyes as a Japanese black bear, big adult one, came charging toward me. I had just gotten back the day before from a visit to the States and I wanted to do a quick hike up a mountain that I’ve hiked dozens of times before. That’s Mount Mitsishi, which is easy access from Morioa. It was going to rain later in the afternoon, but it’s hot. I thought a little rain would be pleasant, so I wasn’t stressed that it was a rainy day. There was hardly anyone else on the mountain. I passed one other guy on my way up. I went down this trail all the way up to a summit called Kumoku. And then it was on the way back, I was going kind of fast walking, not quite jogging, but moving pretty quickly down this trail, trying to outpace the rainfront that was coming from behind me. And as I was right around this area where I am now, I felt or heard just and it this basically big black form that I was just only vaguely uh in my peripheral vision was just off the trail and that scared the hell out of me. I was always moving pretty quickly and at that point um I knew that uh I shouldn’t run away if that was a bear, but I wasn’t even sure 100% if it was a bear at the same time. It felt very bearlike and I I was terrified already at this point, but it was so close off the trail that I kept walking down the trail. Maybe it was right over here off trail and as I was going quickly down here, I didn’t notice it. So, it would have been coming at me right here on this trail in this point. And I did a sort of sideways like walk here to see what was behind me while still putting some distance between myself and whatever it was. And sure enough, a few seconds later, there was a noise and a rather large adult black bear came bounding onto the trail, moving toward me quickly. And at this point, I’ve I’ve got my life flashing before my eyes. I mean, my initial thought to be honest um was this is what I get because I was being quiet and I’m always saying that I’d like to see more animals, which is really um in retrospect a bit naive of me. And so I thought this is this is my turn. I’ve seen a lot of bear attack videos and I’ve seen people fight them off, but I was thinking I’m going to get seriously injured. This is going to hurt like hell, but there’s nothing to do but fight. So, as it was charging toward me, I had my GoPro in one hand and I stopped whereas I was sideways fleeing from it, turned to face it, and just bellowed, took a step or two toward it, prepared to fight, thinking that maybe I was going to jam the GoPro down its throat and go for its eyes with the other hand. I mean, probably not realistic, but at the same time, that’s what I was thinking. The adrenaline was very real at that moment and it was coming at me and then just at the last second when it was maybe 1 2 m away from me it suddenly turned around and ran back the way it came and uh around a corner and uh was off and that was it. The immediate question about this is was this what gets called a bluff charge or a false charge? Was it never even intending to attack me? was just trying to do that because there are cases lots of cases where a bear will run up to someone, stop sort of right in front of them, turn around and run away. There’s no real way to know if this was a bluff charge, but I had to heir on the side of thinking that it was not um because I was moving away from it and I just assumed that uh because I had initially more or less if not turned my back to it, turned my side to it and by continuing to move away from it triggered that uh instinct to come after me. Everybody does agree that if you run away from a bear, black bear or any kind of bear, it’s gonna come and it’s gonna mess you up. That’s a well agreed upon fact. Should I have done what I did do, which is yell and scream at it and like prepare to fight? Uh or what some Japanese people say is that I should have just stood quietly. Just just stood just stood quietly and done nothing and then it would have done this bluff charge and run away. that might have worked. But being from the United States, I grew up, you know, I saw a bear or too when I was out um with my parents uh camping in the quico in the Boundary Waters um northern Minnesota up into Canada. And what we did when we saw bears then is like make ourselves big, right? You grab the canoe paddle or like pots and pans. You make noise, you yell, and you make yourself really big to scare it away. That’s what you do. Though I then talked to Mr. Sakawa, who is a friend of mine, another hiker, and a 75-year-old um local hiking enthusiast who literally wrote the book on Mount Iwat. He thinks that you rather should just be quiet and it will go away on its own. I’ve talked to other people who say the opposite thing. So, there’s really I don’t have a strong answer on that one. Either way, the number one thing to do is to just avoid the situation in the first place. And that means when you’re walking around to be like, “Hey, hey, you know, be making loud noises like that to broadcast your presence, you know, periodically as you walk. And that way, um, bears are going to know you’re around and presumably run away and not mess with you. Another solution besides yelling and screaming is, uh, carrying a whistle. Um, some of the patrols that go around here carry these little whistles. This is sold at Montbell, but any whistle would work. I don’t like this as much, though. I have been using it since this uh little bear charge of mine uh because it’s it kind of hurts my ears to be honest. I don’t have ear plugs on and it’s it’s really really loud. Better to uh hurt your ears a little bit than be attacked by a bear. So if you’re not confident in your ability to like broadcast large noises, then your whistle is a good bet. Of course, people in Japan swear by the bear bells, but I don’t know. I I think they’re so ubiquitous and I’ve yet to see really good evidence that they work. Few weeks ago, maybe almost a month ago, in Kitakami, which is a city maybe an hour or so drive south of Morioka, where I live in northern Japan in Uati Prefecture, a bear broke into an old woman’s house, went into her kitchen where she was, and attacked her and actually killed her or perhaps injured her and then she bled to death before emergency services arrived and it raided her kitchen. And then that same bear went and broke into another person’s house in that same little country hamlet on the uh outskirts of Kitakami and broke into their kitchen and ate a bag of rice and uh in that case the person escaped and no one was injured but uh got like a home invasion bear on the loose in Kitakami and that’s uh pretty terrifying. Just last week, it’s been all over the news that in the southern tip of Hokkaido, not so far from Hakodate, I think, uh, a newspaper delivery man was um, you know, before dawn, delivering papers in a community of houses in a somewhat rural area, but, you know, it was a cluster of homes. It wasn’t like the middle of the mountains or anything. and a higuma or a brown bear, a Japanese grizzly I guess, uh just attacked him, grabbed him by the arm in its jaws and dragged him like 80 m out of the driveway um across the neighborhood and into a little area of forest where it then devoured him. This was a 52year-old man. All the experiences in his life, everything that he’s done, all his friends, his memories, all the choices he made led him to that moment. Geez, how’s fate for you? I I just can’t imagine. But that’s been all over the news. And of course, they’re looking to find that bear because it’s likely that that bear will become a serial killer if they don’t put it down. So, let me just review what you should do if you see a bear when you’re hiking in Japan. First, you stop. you hopefully it’s already running away by the time you notice it and so it’s no big deal. Um hopefully you’re hiking in a group too so it’ be too scared uh to come and approach you. But the most important thing is just not to run away and whether you want to wave your arms and make noise and scare it. That’s what I did and it worked. But a lot of people say you should just like be quiet and calm and just sort of stop and especially if you’re in a group and comp like hey bear and and it’ll just run away. The most important thing to remember is just uh don’t run. Of course we have bear spray. Um, that’s useful, too. But when the bear charged me a couple weeks ago, it was just so quick. There was no time to pull it out of a pocket, pull the safety off, check the the wind or something so you’re not getting in your own eyes, aim it, and spray. It was all just like I had seconds. And I guess in some cases, you might see a bear from farther off, and bear spray would be great. But there’s going to be some cases where it’s not useful at all. As you may know, I spend a lot of my time guiding people up on these fantastic alpine marshlands, volcanoes, and the coastal areas of northern Japan. And while I’m guiding people, I have never once seen a bear. And that’s because we’re a group, we’re making noise, we’re talking, and so we’ve got a blast radius of noise around us, and any bears in the area are going to uh make themselves scarce in advance. And so I don’t want you to get the misimpression that you shouldn’t come uh on a guided hike with me because uh there’s a bear risk. There is not. I was absolutely alone on the mountain when I met the bear yesterday. And when you’re with people, the likelihood goes down even closer to zero. And even if you do somehow manage to see a bear in a group, it’s going to be scared by the group and run away by the time you noticed it nearly 100% of the time. What do you think of this bearing encounter? Have you ever met a bear on the mountains? Um, please leave a comment and tell me if you’ve had any bear or other wild animal experiences and what you did. And also feel free to tell me um any other things you think I did uh right or wrong. Uh, I deserve it. I uh did not behave perfectly with this um bear encounter. I’m just uh glad that it was okay and I did learn from it, so I’ll be even better next time. Thank you so much for watching and I’ll see you on the trails. [Music]

This incident took place on July 2, 2025 near Mitsu-numa pond just past the summit of Mt. Mitsuishi. Around 100 meters from here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/dy9YysjcUnYJQUfs7

The brown bear in Hokkaido that killed the delivery man was caught and euthanized. It was discovered to be also responsible for a woman’s death 4 years ago in the same area. The bear that was terrorizing Kitakami was also likely euthanized by a local hunter soon after the event.

I’m a full-time guide, mostly up in Tohoku (northeast Japan) but I also lead normal tours on the Nakasendo, in Izu, Kyoto, etc.

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