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The story
Just before midnight on the 18th in Ishikari City, Hokkaido, an angler called Japan’s emergency line (110) to report a bear sighting. One salmon was missing from his basket, apparently taken by the bear. On 5ch’s Newsplus board, the thread lit up with jabs at the headline “investigated as theft,” while also drifting into more serious territory — research showing Ezo brown bears actually don’t eat much salmon, and criticism of anglers who strip out the roe and dump the carcasses. Some argued the point of the call wasn’t really “a salmon got stolen,” but rather a warning that a bear had shown up in an area anglers frequent.
9/19 (Sat) 10:12
STV News Hokkaido
On September 18, 2026, around 11:30 PM, there was a bear sighting in Ishikari City, Hokkaido.
Source: topics.smt.docomo.ne.jp / Original article here
What people said
Be glad it wasn't you that got taken instead
Actually, according to Hokkaido University research, Ezo brown bears don't eat that much salmon
Since wolves went extinct they've had fewer chances to eat meat, so they've gone more herbivorous
Same deal with mice and cheese — everyone just assumes it, but mice eat literally anything, the stereotype has nothing to do with reality
That souvenir design was copied from a European one anyway
Japanese bears were never the original model for it
A bear that's actually made of bear poop? (wordplay riffing on "Kuma no Pooh-san," since "Pooh" sounds like Japanese slang for poop)
Using a snag hook… er, never mind… ("gang hooks" — treble hooks used to illegally snag fish, hence trailing off)
lol ("kusa"/grass = Japanese internet slang for LOL)
This
No other reply needed
> Investigated as theft
Guess it's off to the station for "voluntary" questioning then
The culling bounty is something like 40,000 yen
Not bad, could work
Weird way to phrase it, but isn't that poaching?
I wonder how they classify the ones that die of exhaustion after spawning
Some animals are smart enough to learn to tail human hunters and fishermen and swipe their catch.
There's even a story about crows: while humans were doing bird conservation work, the crows watched them, figured out where the wild birds' nests were, and raided them. Once the humans doing the binocular surveys were kept away, the crow attacks stopped and the bird population started recovering nicely.
Let's just do it
England managed it 1,000 years ago, so it should be a breeze
Poaching's basically yakuza business, after all
Ah I see, so it got fixated and only took back the specific salmon it had caught itself from the basket
Isn't that just its pupils shrinking because it's bright out?
Haha, classic — so annoying, right
Worst one for me was losing a spear squid about 40cm long lol
If I recall, it was dramatized about as reliably as Seton's Wild Animal tales
What should really be criticized here is the media's tone-deafness — or lack of urgency — for spinning it into a headline like "salmon stolen"
No wonder you don't do well at hostess clubs lol
Isn't it more that the angler wandered into bear territory?
Anyway, buy me a round at the hostess club
Background and talking points
In Hokkaido, salmon run upriver from September through October, and this is also the season when brown bear sightings pick up in the Ishikari River system. Within the thread, pushback emerged against the image of bears as salmon-eaters, citing Hokkaido University research showing Ezo brown bears actually eat relatively little salmon — after wolves went extinct, their opportunities to eat meat declined and they shifted toward a more plant-based diet. Also, this 110 call was really about public-safety information — a bear appearing where anglers frequent — not about the loss of one salmon becoming some kind of “incident.” Still, the headline “investigated as theft” took on a life of its own, spreading reactions that anthropomorphized and joked about the bear. At the same time, some pointed out that anglers who leave leftover food or squeezed-out roe scraps at fishing spots can attract bears, sometimes leading to them being culled — a serious wildlife-management issue underneath all the jokes.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Newsplus) thread “[(・(ｪ)・)] “Bear made off with my salmon,” angler’s 110 call — one salmon missing from basket, Ishikari City, Hokkaido.”
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