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How Japan is confronting its deadly bear crisis  December 16, 2025

 

What's up, sunshine? I'm Coy Wire. Welcome to CNN 10, where we tell you the what, letting you decide what to think. Got a lot of stories to get to, not a lot of time to do it, so let's get to it.

 

We begin in Japan, where the military has been deployed to help with a spate of dangerous bear attacks. At least 13 people have been killed, more than 200 injured since just April of this year. That's the highest numbers on record.

 

spate [spet] n. 突然迸发，一阵

 

But hunters on the front lines of the crisis say that they saw this problem coming. They point to a changing climate and habitat loss as key factors. Our Hanako Montgomery has more.

 

Among Japan's frosted thickets lies an animal, one so feared it makes humans feel like prey. This year, at least 13 people have died in Japan from bear attacks. More than 200 have also been injured.

 

frosted [ˋfrɔstɪd] adj. 被霜覆盖的

thicket [ˋθɪkɪt] n. 灌林丛；杂木林

 

Embassies are even warning its citizens to beware the bears. The panic's so widespread that people are now sheltering indoors. It's a problem these hunters say they saw coming for years.

 

If the government had taken this seriously earlier, it wouldn't have gotten this bad. It's nonsense that they're responding now, only after things have escalated.

 

nonsense [ˋnɑnsɛns] n. 胡闹，愚蠢的举动

 

To respond to this crisis, Japan has deployed troops to the front lines. But because the country's self-defense forces are legally only allowed to use their firearms for national defense, they can't exterminate wild animals.

 

They can only provide logistical support, like laying down traps, leaving the actual calling to local hunters. Haruo Ikegami has culled bears for over four decades.

 

logistical [ləˋdʒɪstɪk!] adj. 后勤方面的

cull [kʌl] v. 限量捕杀

 

At 76, he still visits his traps every morning to see what the night's brought in.

 

How serious is this problem getting?

 

People are dead. This is a murder case.

 

Today, Ikegami's traps yield nothing. Bad news for a local fruit farmer, whose crops were destroyed just days earlier. The furry suspect leaving behind a trail of evidence.

 

yield [jild] v. 产生（效果，收益等）

furry [ˋfɝɪ] adj. 毛皮的；覆有毛皮的

 

It's impossible to coexist with the bears. One blow from them and you're finished.

 

To Ikegami, the reason behind the increased attacks is simple.

 

Too many bears and not enough hunters. While Japan's bear population has doubled in the past few decades, hunters, like much of Japan, are aging and disappearing. But experts say these attacks are only increasing now, partly because of climate change.

 

With less fruit and nuts in the wild, they prowl city centers instead for their next meal.

 

More and more local governments in Japan are having to simulate these bear drills. And today, the scenario is that a bear has been spotted at some school grounds, and the police have been called in, local hunters have also been called in, and right now they're just deciding whether or not they're going to actually cull the bear.

 

After failing to scare the bear away, they settle on the last resort. Japan's demographic crisis also means rural towns, once buffers separating the bears' habitat from cities, are emptying out. Making it easier for bears to cross into inhabited areas.

 

buffer [ˋbʌfɚ] n. 起缓冲作用的人（或物）

empty out 全部撤离

 

Japan's first response is blunt. Kill bears that cross the red line. But animal rights groups plead for different solutions.

 

blunt [blʌnt] adj.（头脑，感觉等）迟钝的

cross the red line: to defy or violate the furthest limit of what is tolerable, allowable, or forgivable

 

To keep bears at bay, Hiroo Tamatani and his group try several methods. Like using dogs to scare off the animals. Instead of culling, they capture and tranquilize the bears, then insert chips to track their location.

 

keep .. at bay 不使...迫近; 不使逼近

 

What do you think about the Japanese government's solution to cull more bears?

 

Rather than just trying to reduce the number of bears, I think it's important to identify which bears pose a serious threat and respond specifically to those individual bears.

 

This is an ancient fight for survival. But as Japan scrambles to find solutions that are fast and fair, more lives, human and animal alike, will likely pay the price.

 

Now to Brazil, where a beautiful yet bittersweet natural phenomenon is underway in Rio de Janeiro. The city's landscape has been transformed by blooming talipot palm trees, which flower only one time before their death.

 

talipot [ˋtælə͵pɑt] n.【植】一种大棕榈树

flower [ˋflaʊɚ] v. 开花

 

The towering palms can reach heights of more than 60 feet and can take up to 80 years to produce a singular bloom.

 

singular [ˋsɪŋgjəlɚ] adj. 異常的；奇異的

 

The trees are native to India and Sri Lanka, but were introduced to Brazil in the 1960s by renowned landscape architect Roberto Berle Marx.

 

The spectacle last occurred in 2010, and it could be decades before it happens here again. But death isn't the end for these towering palms.

 

The trees in the city's botanical gardens will be cut at the base once they die, enabling new seedlings to rise and continue the cycle for future generations.

 

seedling [ˋsidlɪŋ] n. 籽生植物；幼苗

 

10-second trivia. What is the deepest lake in the world?

 

Lake Ontario, Lake Victoria, Lake Baikal, or Lake Tanganyika?

 

Baikal [baɪˋkɑl] n. 贝加尔湖

Tanganyika 坦干依喀湖

 

If you said Baikal, your knowledge is deep.

 

Located in Russia's Siberia region, Lake Baikal is not only the world's deepest lake at nearly 5,400 feet, but also the largest freshwater lake by volume. Its surface area is larger than the country of Belgium.

 

Speaking of Siberia, stunning new video shows the moment fishermen spotted dozens of helpless deer stranded on a frozen lake.

 

This time of year, snow over the icy ground and frozen lakes typically allows wildlife to trek across the landscape without much difficulty.

 

But a brief period of unseasonably mild temperatures meant the surface snow melted and became extremely slippery.

 

unseasonably [ʌnˋsiznəb!ɪ] adv. 不合时令（或季节）地；不合时宜地

 

Exhausted and unable to get back on their feet, the deer faced freezing to death or harming themselves while attempting to escape.

 

At first attempt to rescue the deer, the fishermen first carried the deer to shore, then used sleds to pull them to safety.

 

sled [slɛd] n.【主美】雪橇；重型运输雪橇

 

Question for you.What do a wedding dress, a prosthetic leg, and a cooked frog have in common? This is not a setup to a joke.

 

prosthetic [prɑsˋθɛtɪk] adj.【医】义肢的；假肢的

 

It's a list of things that have actually been lost aboard trains and buses in London's massive transit system. The peculiar possessions are just a fraction of the nearly 6,000 items that wind up in the Transport for London lost property warehouse every week.

 

peculiar [pɪˋkjuljɚ] adj. 奇怪的；乖癖的；罕见的

possession [pəˋzɛʃən] n. 所有物；财产

 

The massive facility stores thousands of lost items, from umbrellas to urns, in an effort to reunite them with their owners. Take a look inside.

 

urn [ɝn] n. 瓮；缸；骨灰瓮

reunite [͵rijuˋnaɪt] v. 使重聚[（+with）]

 

So this section is our famous umbrellas. These are the long umbrellas this time.

 

So this is lost property office for Transport for London. We receive items that have been lost on Transport for London's modal system. That's from London Overground, London Underground, Elizabeth Line, Crossrail, DLR, and black taxi cabs.

 

modal [ˋmod!] adj. 形式的; of, relating to, or characteristic of a mode

 

OK, so when the items are lost, they'll hopefully end up here if someone hands it in. And what we do, we input it, put it into our system, and collect as much information regarding the item. So if you do inquire about it, we'll try and match the item and return it to you.

 

inquire [ɪnˋkwaɪr] v. 讯问；查问

 

In this room, we keep all mobile phones. As you can see, the mobile phones here. The red ones is for black taxi cabs, because as you know, that's part of TfL Transport as well.

 

Over here, we have laptops, mobile phones, and iPads. And basically, because of the lithium batteries, so this room stays around 90 degrees all time.

 

If the items are not found within the three months, we basically put all those items together and decide if it should go to auction or charity.

 

This area is one of my favorite areas. It's items that we've kept for longer than three months, some as long as World War II. One of the items I really like to look at is the stuffed pufferfish, because it's just unbelievable.

 

pufferfish [ˈpʌfɚfɪʃ] n. 河豚

 

I mean, you can't even hold it. And how they got here, I don't know. That's actually one of our oldest items.

 

It's probably more than 40, 45 years old.

 

Today's story, getting a 10 out of 10,a daddy-daughter dance that will melt our hearts at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, also known as Angola Prison, dozens of incarcerated fathers were reunited with their daughters for a first-of-its-kind event.

 

penitentiary [͵pɛnəˋtɛnʃərɪ] n. 监狱；（天主教的）宗教裁判所

incarcerate [ɪnˋkɑrsə͵ret] v. 监禁

 

Dads wore tuxedos, many for the first time, and daughters, ages 5 to 20, got ready with the help of volunteer makeup artists and stylists who donated their time and supplies.

 

The event reunited 29 fathers and 37 daughters for a few hours and offered families some unique bonding time that they rarely get.

 

This moment right here today, soak it in. I pray that we get many more of these moments, but we don't know how many we have.

 

They're my world. They mean everything. The reason I keep going every day in this place, the reason I fight to get out of here, it won't make up for the past time, but it's having our future.

 

I missed every single event in my little girl's life. I mean, I missed her first steps, her first words. When she was younger, I love you, Daddy, is something that I just, I rarely or hardly ever heard.

 

Missing all of that affected me, but what it affected most is her. And to have this day, be able to share this moment together, it's just, it's going to be magical. I just want her to feel the love and just have a good time and smile.

 

If you want to hear more about this inspiring story,be sure to check out our friends over at CNN's 5 Good Things podcast.

 

All right, superstars, I've got one shout out for you today. We are sending some love to our friends at Crested Butte Community School in Colorado.

 

Thank you for watching us from almost 9,000 feet above sea level. Go on out, make someone smile today. You are more powerful than you know.

 

I'm Coy Wire and we are CNN 10.