After a brown bear attacked a pickup truck on a forest road, police on the Japanese island of Hokkaido called on the population to be cautious.
Dashcam footage released by the Hokkaido Prefectural Police shows two men walking along a forest path when they encountered a bear and her cub on opposite sides of the road.
As the vehicle slowed, a brown bear, presumably the mother, charged at the pickup truck, ramming headfirst into the windshield and destroying the windshield wiper. When the driver attempted to reverse and honk the horn to scare the animal away, the bear rammed the vehicle with its paw, breaking the windshield diagonally.
Although the two tried to escape at high speed, the bear pursued the vehicle.
“Did you see that?” one of the people could be heard saying on the dashcam footage.
“It’s coming, it’s coming, oh my God.”
Researchers: Van probably separated mother bear from cub
Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun reported that the two men were in the forest picking Allium ochotense, a type of wild onion, at around 1 p.m. on April 28 when the incident occurred. According to NHK Japan, the two were not injured in the incident, but the vehicle sustained significant damage: the windshield was cracked and the wipers and bumper were broken.
Masami Yamanaka, a special researcher at the Shiretoko Nature Foundation, told the media that the vehicle came between the mother bear and her cub and she may have felt she had no choice but to attack.
According to NHK Japan, there were an estimated more than 12,000 brown bears in Hokkaido at the end of 2022, with their population increasing in recent years.
On the island, which is about the size of Maine, 150 bear attacks have been recorded since 1962, leaving 57 dead and 112 injured, according to The Japan Times. In 2021, four people were killed and 10 injured, making it one of the deadliest years on record.
Saman Shafiq is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at [email protected] and follow her on X @saman_shafiq7.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Video shows bear attack and truck windshield smashed in Japan
