Figure 1
That said, the estimated number of brown bears in Hokkaido is 12,000, which is about 26 times the number on the Iberian Peninsula, and when you add those to the estimated 42,000 Asian black bears living in Honshu and Shikoku, the overall number of bears on the Iberian Peninsula is less than 1% of those in Japan, so there really is no comparison. Of course, a result of that is the damage by the bears, which has been reported in the news almost every day in Japan lately, but in Spain, it rarely makes national news unless the damage is quite bad, even if it becomes local news.
Against that background, a very interesting decision was made this year by the High Court of Justice of Asturias. In spring four years ago, a 75-year-old woman was attacked by a brown bear while walking in a mountain village, and sustained severe injuries to her face and hips. In 1973, brown bears were designated as a protected species in danger of extinction. Although there is a local municipality program to compensate for damage to livestock or crops, Carmen, the victim, could not accept that the system did not apply to injuries to people, and she filed a lawsuit against the Asturias Regional Government.
After a court case lasting four years, in April 2025, the court accepted the plaintiff’s complaint and ordered that the regional government pay a total of 83,600 euros (about 13,626,925 yen) in compensation. Of course, this amount was for her medical expenses, including rehabilitation, but even included 269 euros (48,679 yen) for replacing her newly made glasses, which were broken in the bear attack, and besides the 53,600 euros in expenses she had to pay, it also included 30,000 euros (5,428,923 yen) in compensation for psychological distress. If compensation were paid for every injury to a person by a bear in Japan, it would reach a very high amount. Photo 1 shows a brown bear living in Asturias, where the attack occurred. This is not the culprit in this case...I think.
Photo 1
In another area on the Iberian Peninsula where brown bears live, the Pyrenees region, the bears were on the verge of extinction, so France led a program that started in 1996 to bring in bears from Slovenia in Eastern Europe, which was successful. The population of bears has now increased to about 90, but in recent years, reports have emerged of violent bears attacking grazing cattle, and questions are being raised again about the difficulty of both protecting a rare species and doing something to stop damage by the bears. As I mentioned earlier, Spain and France are now looking into ways for bears and humans to live together, for example, by setting up programs to compensate for bear damage. Figure 2 shows confirmed bear sightings in the Pyrenees region, which straddles the border between Spain and France.
Figure ２
By the way, two types of bears are found in Japan, the brown bear in Hokkaido and the Asian black bear in Honshu and Shikoku, which is why the wooden carvings of a bear holding a salmon in its mouth, which were once very popular as a Hokkaido souvenir, are carvings of a brown bear, and the bear that Kintaro [a character in a famous Japanese folktale] is said to have wrestled on Mount Ashigara as a child is an Asian black bear. When it comes to world-famous bears, there’s Winnie-the-Pooh, who we thought was a brown bear of British nationality, but apparently was modelled on an American black bear (Ursus americanus) from Canada. Speaking of British connections, as part of the 2022 celebrations marking Queen Elizabeth II's 70th anniversary on the throne, Her Majesty sent an invitation for afternoon tea to Paddington Bear, who is from Peru, South America, so I guess he is a spectacled bear (Tremarctos ornatus).
Anyhow, I wonder if there isn’t some way to get along with bears, those beloved fictional characters.
