Fun Friday 31: Bear attacks in Japan

About this episode

In this episode, Alex Brooke interviews Wes Lang about bear attacks in Japan and hiking safety.

Welcome to the Fun Friday edition of the Learn Japanese Pod podcast — the show where we sit down with cool people doing cool things in Japan. In this episode, I talk with Wes Lang about the recent rise in bear encounters and attacks across Japan: the latest stats, what’s causing them, and what Japan is doing to prevent future incidents. We also dive into Wes’s long experience as a master hiker. He was the first American to complete the Hyakumeizan , and he shares practical advice on how to prepare for the unlikely event of meeting a bear on the trail — including what to do, what not to do, and some useful bear-related vocabulary in Japanese. I learned a lot from this interview with Wes, and I now feel slightly more prepared to go hiking — and hopefully avoid any battles with bears! Wes is the creator of hikinginjapan.com , an authoritative resource with detailed information on hundreds of hikes and mountains across Japan. If you love hiking, Japanese nature, or just a good story, you won’t want to miss this one.

People in this episode

Host: Alex Brooke

Guest: Wes Lang

Topics covered

• bear attacks
• hiking safety
• Japanese nature
• outdoor adventures
• bear encounters

Keywords

• bear attacks
• Japan
• hiking
• safety tips
• outdoor adventures
• bear encounters
• Japanese vocabulary

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: hikinginjapan.com

Places: Japan

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