On Monday evening, Japanese police received a report from a family in the city of Shizukuishi in the north of the country, stating that a bear had entered their home. A local official said on Wednesday that the family found the bear inside the kitchen, where it opened the refrigerator and scattered its contents before leaving through a back door, according to police, who found its footprints near the house. He added that the bear searched the trash in search of leftover food, noting that at least four other families reported that bears had entered their homes in the city since July 5. These incidents come amid growing fears in Japan about bear attacks, after they resulted in the deaths of at least five people since April 1, all of them in the Tohoku region in the north of the country, after recording a record number of attacks during the past fiscal year.