Gruesome final moments of mourners as bear ripped through funeral of first victim
In a snowy, iced over landscape a struggling village was ripped apart by a starving bear which learned attacking humans had no consequences.
The bear ripped through the funeral of its first victim(Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
One brown bear terrorised a village, stalking then slaughtering five people in some of the most unusual examples of animal behaviour ever recorded.
The northern Japanese beast ran through a small village, crippling a community already struggling with food stores and travel amid thick relentless snow.
It even ripped through the funeral of its first victim, killing mourners.
Sankebetsu in 1915 was surrounded by forests that were iced over. Tucked away in northern Japan, the village was already under strain and it wasn’t just the villagers struggling – apex predators were also hungry.
The first time the killer bear was seen, the huge brown beast attacked a woman who was tending to chores next to her home.
The bear went to its first victim’s funeral(Image: Town of Shibecha/AFP via Getty I)
This first killing was likely quick, and within close quarters. The bear then retreated back into the forest.
As it fled, the village assumed the woman startled the animal and that is why it attacked. The villagers thought the bear was not a threat. No one hunted the bear and no effort was made to track the animal.
It is likely this bear then learned that attacking a human goes un-punished, which destroyed the expectation that animals will generally avoid humans, as per Black Beasts and Boogey Men.
The bear then grew cleverer, entered peoples homes and learned its surroundings. It even attended the funeral of the first woman it had killed, drawn in by the spread at the wake. It killed the mourners gathering at the loss of their loved one.
In one night multiple people were killed in separate attacks. By the time the bear was finally stopped, five lives had been lost, several of them within hours of one another.
The brown bear has learned not to fear humans(Image: Getty Images)
After these killings the bear did not flee and it learned it could return – without consequence. Some villagers thought that it could not be the one bear responsible for all these deaths – stalling the hunt for the beast.
Eventually, a group of hunters found and killed the bear, a large male who had clearly been starving. After this bear was killed – all the attacks stopped.
Brown bears still live in Hokkaido today, dwelling in the island’s forests and mountain ranges, with some bear populations stable or recovering after decades of decline.
The region where Sankebetsu once stood is now empty and thus there have been no further bear attacks.
In 2025, Japan recorded 13 human fatalities and more than 100 injuries resulting from bear encounters, involving both Asiatic brown bears and Asiatic black bears.
These encounters were spread across all areas of the country and many of these were triggered by reduced natural food availability, its environment changing shape and more humans encroaching on their space.
