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Now here's a story out of Florida that bears watching. Florida's black bear hunt is underway, and troubles' a-bruin. The problem is, as it so often is in wildlife policy: A question of policy based on emotion vs. policy based on science. Ten years ago, a Florida bear hunt shocked the public when photos spread online of bloody carcasses of mother bears loaded in pick-up trucks and splayed out on concrete slabs at hunter check-in stations. The hunt, the first in 20 years, was halted in less than 48 hours after an estimated 304 bears were killed the first weekend....

On November 20, 2025, a bit before 2 p.m., a group of elementary school children was attacked by a grizzly bear, not far from their school. At least two adult men were with the children. It appears they and two others, including at least one child, were severely injured during the attack. At least one of the men is reported to have been severely injured while fighting the bear and protecting the children. Two of the victims were listed in critical condition, two others were listed as serious, and seven others were treated at the scene with less serious injuries....

The kanji 熊 (kuma), meaning “bear,” came out on top in popular voting for the kanji of the year for 2025. Powerful wild animals encroaching into human settlements were an irresistible image propelling the character past 米 (kome, “rice”) in a closely contested race.

The highest number of fatal bear attacks recorded in Japan was six in fiscal year 2023. In fiscal year 2025, 13 people were killed in Japan by bears. The most significant number of people attacked, injured, and recorded was 213 in 2023. As of fiscal 2025, the number stands at 230. Japan uses the fiscal year from April 1 to March 31 for most of its administrative accounting. Bears in Japan typically begin hibernating in December, but attacks can occur at any time of year.Japan has used the fiscal year accounting method to record bear attacks since 2006. The Japan...

A Florida circuit judge refused to halt the long-planned and anticipated Florida bear hunt. The bear hunt is the first to be allowed since 2014-15, when 305 bears were harvested in two days. Bear Warriors United, a non-profit association, attempted to stop the hunt. Here is the first sentence in Bear Warriors United vision: Our vision is to create a Florida where people and wildlife coexist in balance and mutual respect. The vision implies nature is in balance without humans, and animals are legitimately regarded as the equal of humans. It is a basic misunderstanding of reality. There is no...

Teachers fended off a grizzly bear that attacked a school group walking along a trail in British Columbia, Canada, on Thursday, officials said. "The group had stopped along a trail near the community when a grizzly bear emerged from the forest and attacked," Inspector Kevin Van Damme of British Columbia’s Conservation Officer Service, said in an update on social media. "Teachers successfully repelled the bear using pepper spray and a bear banger."

A grizzly bear attacked a group of elementary school students and teachers in Canada, leaving 11 people injured. Two people were left critically injured, and two sustained serious injuries following the attack at Acwsalcta School on Thursday in Bella Coola, northwest of Vancouver. Emergency Health Services spokesman Brian Twaites said in a statement that two ambulances and a helicopter were called to the scene. 'Paramedics provided emergency medical treatment to four patients and transported them to hospital. Two patients were in critical condition and two were in serious condition,' he said. Police corporal Madonna Saunderson said she did not yet...

By Nono Shen, The Canadian Press Posted November 20, 2025 10:13 pm.Last Updated November 21, 2025 1:40 am.A grizzly bear has attacked a group of elementary school students and teachers in the B.C. central coast community of Bella Coola, leaving two people critically injured and two others seriously hurt.B.C. Emergency Health Services said seven more people were treated at the scene of the attack in the community about 700 kilometres northwest of Vancouver, which was called in just before 2 p.m. on Thursday.Veronica Schooner said her 10-year-old son Alvarez was in the Year 4-5 class that was attacked while on...

Decades ago, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service established a regulatory requirement to report the taking of grizzly bears in self-defense in the lower 48 states.From 50 C.F.R. 17.40(b)(1)(i)(B):Grizzly bears may be taken in self-defense or in defense of others, but such taking shall be reported by the individual who has taken the bear or his designee within 5 days of occurrence… The penalties for failing to report to the authorities within 5 days are up to six months in prison and a $25,000 fine.Tim Sundles of Buffalo Bore Ammunition recently created a video about handguns for defense against wild...

Japan has had ten people killed by bears in 2025. It is a record number, with than 172 people injured by October 22. In 2023, more than 200 were injured, but only six died. Japan has more people killed by bears than the United States. Since Japan started keeping records in 2007, the number of people killed by wild (not captured) bears has been 50 in Japan, with one uncertain, as of October 2025. For the same time period, wild bears killed 35 people in the United States. From japantimes.co.jp:Separate bear attacks in Japan killed one and injured four on...

One of the significant advantages of using handguns to defend against bear attacks is that defense with a handgun is far more likely to result in a dead bear. This is a highly desirable result. Bears that attack humans should be killed. Killing aggressive bears is a way to condition the bear population to avoid humans.The false premise implicit in the argument for non-lethal defenses against bears is that there are such small numbers of bears that killing a bear removes a valuable resource from the bear genetic pool. This view had some legitimacy about 1975-1980, when the population of...

Two fatal bear attacks occurred in Arkansas in 2025. The first attack occurred on September 3, 2025, near the Mulberry Mountain area of north-west Arkansas. The second attack happened on October 1st or 2nd, near the Sam’s Throne campground near Mount Judea. The two attacks happened in or on the edge of the Ozark National Forest, about 45 miles apart.The last fatal bear attack recorded in Arkansas occurred in 1892, as reported from the May 10 edition of the Arkansas Democrat. From aktimes.com:Mountain Home, Ark., May 10 — Mrs. Mary Carter, a widow, with a small family of children, is...

The use of handguns to defend against bear attacks has been shown to be effective 98% of the time. This update details 16 more cases where a handgun was fired in defense against a bear or bears. In this study, all cases where a handgun was fired in defense against a bear are included. This guards against selection bias. Every case is described in detail, allowing readers to draw their own conclusions. If researchers refuse to disclose the data used to support their papers, it detracts from the validity of the conclusions. Extreme accuracy or speed with handguns does not...

On October 8, 2025, an 82-year-old woman was attacked by an Asiatic black bear in the city of Daisen in Akita Prefecture, Japan. The attack was caught on video. The bear is presumed to be an Asiatic black bear because the brown bears (Ursus Arctos) in Japan are limited to the northern island of Hokkaido. Daisen and Akita prefectures are not in Hokkaido. Akita prefecture is on the largest of the Japanese islands, Honshu. Honshu has a significant population of Asiatic black bears. From the bear’s actions, it appears to be a juvenile bear that has not yet perfected its...

Billy Halloran's peaceful trail run in Japan turned into a fight for survivalWhen Billy Halloran set out on a training run in the forest surrounding Myoko, a mountain town in central Japan, one morning in early October, he was expecting little more than a quiet workout among the trees. That changed when he noticed movement in the undergrowth—two Asiatic black bears staring back at him from less than 30 metres away. Bear encounters in Japan have surged this year, with more than a hundred people injured and at least seven killed, the highest toll since tracking began in 2006, as...

Florida is permitting a bear hunt from December 6 to December 28, 2025. The hunt administrators will issue a meager 187 permits for bears, based on a lottery system. A chance to obtain a bear permit will cost $5. There is no limit to the number of chances that can be submitted per person. If someone with $5 million wanted to submit a million lottery chances, they could do so. However, only one win can be used to obtain a permit per person. If a person submits 100 chances and wins five, only one permit will be allowed to that...

A 72-year-old man, Vernon Patton, was working on a gravel road with his tractor when a 70-pound juvenile male black bear attacked him. The attack happened on September 3, 2025, in the Mulberry Mountain area of Arkansas. The attack occurred near Highway 23, just south of the Mulberry Mountain lodge. Vernon’s son came by to check on him. The son saw his father being attacked and drove off the bear by throwing rocks at it. From foxnews.com: A 72-year-old man had to be airlifted to the hospital this week after he was mauled by a 70-pound bear in Arkansas, state...

Homeowner Uses AR-15 to Defend Against Black Bear in Home – VIDEO On August 20, 2025, Mrgunsngear posted a video on X. The video appears to show a homeowner moving downstairs with an AR-15 with a weapon light. The homeowner moves away from the camera, wearing only shorts. He goes through two doorways and nears the far wall. At this point, looking through the doorways, a bear appears to be moving toward him from the left to the right.The homeowner fires seven quick shots, and the bear drops. After the video, an image of a dead bear inside a house...

Scenes of gladiators battling wild beasts before packed crowds in Roman arenas are common in today's popular culture. Ancient written sources record that one animal commonly chosen for these contests was the brown bear (Ursus arctos), though no direct physical evidence of this had ever been found. However, La Brújula Verde reports, a multidisciplinary research team led by Nemanja Marković of Serbia's Institute of Archaeology has recently confirmed that a fragmented animal skull recovered from the Roman city of Viminacium in eastern Serbia belonged to a brown bear that had suffered years in captivity. The animal bone was originally unearthed...

A pair of Cornell University students killed a 120-pound black bear before bringing the carcass back to their dorm, where they skinned and butchered the remains, officials said Thursday. The two undergrads who had “valid New York State hunting licenses killed a bear lawfully over the weekend,” a Cornell spokesperson said in a statement. The students then “brought the animal into a Cornell residence hall for processing on Saturday” before a “police report was made when a complaint was filed late Sunday night,” the school official said, adding that “no charges have been filed.” An investigator with the Department of...