An extremely close call with an aggressive bear was caught on camera at a Japanese ski resort and thanks to a poorly timed charge by the animal the snowboarder involved was able to zip his way to safety. The encountered happened this week at Hakuba47 Mountain Sports Park in Nagano just after the snowboarder began his descent down the mountain. The bear came sprinting onto the slope but misjudged the man’s speed and missed him by a matter of feet.
“Had I fallen I would have been caught. Had I collided I might have been attacked. It was a close call.”
Hakuba47 Mountain Sports Park has been patrolling daily checking for bear footprints since the incident. Employees on these patrols have been issued bear spray as a precaution.
Bear attacks in Japan have reached record highs in 2025. 13 people have been killed by bears this yearย and another 200+ have been injured. Bears have been regularly entering homes, lingering near schools and causing chaos in grocery stores. While bears in Japan normally hibernate in the winter like their cousins in North America, attacks have continued as the cold has set including a man who was attacked early this month in the while shoveling snow near his home.
Japanese biologist believe the upsurge in mauling can be contributed to combination of increased bear populations and a subpar acorn harvest. The Japanese government has responded by creatoing a bear-response task force, revising guidelines for removing bears from residential areas, and in some hard hit regions even deploying military personnel to help set traps and support local hunters.ย
