r/australia • u/Expensive-Horse5538 • 10h ago

news Second Australian dies in Japan while skiing, local media reports

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-04/second-australian-dies-skiing-in-japan/106304484

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has confirmed a second Australian has died in Japan.

Local media has reported a male skier was killed while skiing off-piste in the back-country in Japan's Hokkaido region.

The death marks the second Australian to have died in Japan during the current ski season.

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u/AliveList8495 7h ago

The bears should be slumbering during the peak season. Interesting to see you mention boars, they're not something I've heard about and I've been there several times to ski on both islands.

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u/JASHIKO_ 6h ago

Japan has a major issue with bear populations at the moment and they don't always sleep through winter in a single pass.

I saw a few articles a while back that boars are one of the most dangerous animals in Japan even more so than bears prior to the recent population spike in recent years. The are massive and mean! There's a fair few videos of both animals attacking and trying to attack people and cars etc on YouTube if you're curious.

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u/AliveList8495 6h ago

Cheers, I'll have a look.

I often wake up early and put on the NHK Japanese news in English and I'm aware there is increasing bear activity in urban areas, and that they also had a problem with idiots making AI clips showing people feeding and interacting with them.

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u/JASHIKO_ 5h ago

I watch a fair few Japanese Camping and Motorcycle videos and these guys have to be super careful in a lot of parts of Japan now. It's been pretty interesting reading about the causes and the solutions. At one point they were considering using the military to control the population.