Photo/Illutration Unable to find pink salmon at estuaries, a brown bear looks for the fish in the sea in Rausu, Hokkaido, on Sept. 19. (Takayuki Kakuno)

RAUSU, Hokkaido–A rare sighting of a starving brown bear scrounging desperately for food underscored the severe crisis facing the apex predator on the eastern coast of the Shiretoko Peninsula.

Images captured from a tour boat off the coast on Sept. 19 showed the thin bear swimming, turning over rocks on the beach and rummaging through washed-ashore seaweed in search of fish, shellfish and insects.

Brown bears in Shiretoko, a UNESCO World Natural Heritage site, typically wait at estuaries for pink salmon swimming upstream to spawn from mid-August to early October.

This year, however, bears have been swimming in the sea because they can’t find the fish at the mouths of rivers.

“Some bears have grown really thin, and they are having a tough time,” said Katsuya Noda, who operates the cruise. “There are no fish in the rivers, just like last year.”

For the approximately 500 brown bears that inhabit the area, pink salmon are an essential food source in late summer.

Most bears lose weight in summer because there are not enough plants to eat. The arrival of pink salmon helps them gain weight before they head to the mountains to fatten up on acorns and other food and then hibernate for winter.

Around 2012, bears in the area were reportedly starving to death because salmon didn’t return to the rivers at the normal time, according to Masami Yamanaka, a researcher at the Shiretoko Nature Foundation.

“This year, in addition to the lack of salmon, acorns also have a poor harvest,” Yamanaka said. “An estimated 70 to 80 percent of the cubs born this year are dead. It’s really a serious situation."

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