This is the terrifying moment a climber was forced to use his martial arts skills to fight off an enraged bear in Japan.
The climber could be heard screaming as the black bear lunged at him repeatedly on a rock face on Japan’s Mount Futago earlier this month. Fearing for his life, the man lashed out at the snarling beast, using his fists and feet to strike it until it gave up and ran away. The unnamed climber believes the mother bear was defending her cub and that he had invaded her territory.
Video: Japanese climber uses martial arts to fight off black bear
The footage ends with the bear going to a bush with her cub while the climber, terrified, checks that it is not going to return. But he said he used his karate and mixed martial arts training as he had to defend himself. He said that this was likely to have saved his life.
It comes after a bear injured four people in the Japanese city of Sapporo last June. Dramatic footage showed the bear bounding down busy streets before it darted across a main road and started clawing at the gates of the barracks where it knocked a soldier to the ground as other troops fled in terror.
Schools were shut and flights were cancelled at the regional airport as a team of hunters were deployed alongside police to track the animal down. City officials later tweeted that the beast had been ‘exterminated’ – shot by the hunters.
One soldier was injured in the bear’s rampage in the city, which hosted the Olympic marathon and race-walking events last August. Another victim was mauled by the bear after it attacked him from behind, TV footage showed. The person was taken away on a stretcher. Earlier, government spokesman Katsunobu Kato told people in the Hokkaido region to be on alert.
‘A total of four people, including one Self-Defense Forces member, have been attacked and injured by the brown bear. We express our sincere sympathy to them,’ he said. ‘Officials from Sapporo City, the Hokkaido police, a local hunting association and other concerned agencies have arrived at the scene. They are coordinating efforts to capture the brown bear, or if deemed necessary, exterminate it.’
Video: Bear shot after injuring 4 in suburban Sapporo, Japan
One of the victims was in their 40s, one in their 70s and another in their 80s, according to NHK, which did not give details of the fourth. Asian black bears are native to large parts of Japan, including the country’s main island, while brown bears roam Hokkaido further north. The Japan Bear and Forest Society has warned that forest-dwelling bears are being spotted in greater numbers in areas inhabited by humans as they search for food.
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