A city in Japan has closed all its 94 primary and secondary schools after a bear was spotted in the municipality for the first time, as reported by The Guardian. Utsunomiya is located 100 km north of Tokyo, and the police and hunters resume their search for an animal that is not usually seen so close to country's capital.
Utsunomiya has around 500,000 people, and the city took action, when a medium-sized black bear was seen near a park on Saturday. Later the bear was spotted again running just in front of two startled young men in the city centre, during the early hours of Sunday. The bear was seen in residential areas during the day on Sunday, and again in a factory district about 2 km from the city centre at 04.00 on Monday.
Utsunomiya City officials are urging residents to keep their doors and windows locked, not to approach the bear if they see it and to take refuge in the closest building.
A record 50,000 bear sightings have been reported this year in Japan. Last week, a bear in Fukushima attacked four people, entered a company's office, injuring an employee, before going into a factory, from which it is believed to have escaped by opening a window from inside.
Precise population numbers are unavailable, but there are estimated to be between 12,000 and 42,000 Asiatic black bears on Japan's main Honshu island, and numbers are thought to have increased in line with the growth in sightings.