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Japan is currently grappling with a spike in bear attacks that have resulted in an unprecedented number of deaths in the country. There have also been dozens of people who’ve been targeted and were lucky enough to walk away and tell the tale—including an ultramarathon runner who’s opened up about a harrowing incident that unfolded at the start of October.
Running can be a great excuse to get some fresh air and and connect with nature, but you also have to be aware of your surroundings if you opt for a route that’s going to take you through an area where there’s a chance you’ll encounter an animal you don’t want to come face-to-face with in the wild.
That certainly includes bears, as all the training in the world won’t be able to help you out if you’re targeted by the massive mammals that can easily outrun even the fastest humans on the planet.
Billy Halloran, an ultramarathon runner who hails from New Zealand but has spent the past few years living in Japan, was aware of that fact when he encountered two bears on a run earlier this month, and he has opened up about the terrifying attack that left him nursing some serious injuries.
A bear in Japan attacked an ultramarathon runner who had his arm “fully snapped” while attempting to defend himself
A couple of weeks ago, I got a crash course in the bears of Japan while writing about one that injured two people during an excursion into a supermarket.
The country is home to an estimated 44,000 black bears that reside on the islands of Honshu and Shikoku along with approximately 12,000 brown bears that call Hokkaido home.
It has also been dealing with a rise in the number of attacks on human beings in recent years, as the seven deaths that have been recorded since April mark a record high as climate change that’s impacted their food supply has driven them toward more highly popualated areas in search of a meal.
Around 100 people have also been injured by bears since the start of 2025, and according to RNZ, that includes Billy Halloran, a New Zealand native who has lived with his wife in the city of Myoko for the past three years.
Halloran has been exploring the area’s mountains and forests while training for the ultramarathons he competes in, and during a recent interview with the outlet, he said he’d gotten halfway through an eight-kilometer recovery run when he found himself staring down two black bears in his immediate vicinity.
The 32-year-old said he stood his ground and yelled as loud as he could when one of the bears charged at it, but it didn’t to anything to deter the animal that clamped down on his arm and began to claw at his legs after he was knocked down to the ground.
Halloran said the bear eventually let up before making his way into the forest while leaving him standing with a bleeding calf and broken right arm that had been “fully snapped” after the bear bit the limb he raised to defend his face. He called his wife to pick him up, and she raced to his location before ferrying him to the ambulance she’d called.
He had to endure a 40-minute ride to the hospital with no pain relief before undergoing surgery, which required doctors to graft some bone from his hip to repair the arm that was broken in three places. It will still take him a few months to fully recover, but that’s certainly a better outcome compared to the alternative.
AloJapan.com