Search Continues For 7-Year-Old Japanese Boy Abandoned In Woods By Parents As Form Of Punishment
The search for a missing 7-year-old Japanese boy whose parents abandoned him in a forest as punishment for misbehaving continued at first light Monday morning.
As of Monday morning, more than 150 firefighters, police officers, rescue workers, and even school officials were on their third day of searching for 7-year-old Japanese boy Yamato Tanooka. The boy had been left in the bear-infested mountainous region near the town of Nanae on the main island of Hokkaido, in Northern Japan, by his parents, who thought it the best way to discipline the young boy.
I hope they find him! ?? Missing Japanese boy left in woods as "punishment" – #YamatoTanooka https://t.co/HqBGkunc87
— Nicole Yeary (@nicoleyeary) May 30, 2016
Initially, when Yamato’s parents had contacted emergency services to report him missing, Takayuki Tanooka, the father of the young Japanese boy, had said that while they were in the park on a hike, foraging for wild berries and vegetables, the boy had gone missing. It wasn’t until Sunday, reports BBC, that the father had owned up to leaving the boy in the dangerous forest on purpose. Takayuki had said that the boy was throwing stones at passing cars and people, and to teach him a lesson, they left him there.
“I wanted to discipline him, so made him get out of the car to scare him a bit. He’s an active, lively boy, but I’m worried how he’s doing.”
Mr. Tanooka — who admitted to a TV Asahi reporter that he was too afraid to tell police what had really happened when he had been initially questioned — also said that after the young boy refused to listen, he and his wife had ordered Yamato out of the car, and drove away, leaving the young boy alone in the forest. He said they only drove less than half a mile away, and walked back to the place they had left their young son not five minutes later, but the boy was already gone.
The search for the young Japanese boy entered its third day on Monday, as officials, and the boy’s parents, continue to worry about the Yamato’s well-being — especially considering the mountainous region in which he was abandoned is home to as many as three thousand Ussuri brown bears, known for their aggression and attacks on humans. Two men have already been killed by Ussuri bears in Japan this month.
The Northern Japanese island of Hokkaido — where the boy was abandoned — is also known as the site of the worst, and most deadly, bear attack in Japanese history, according to the Telegraph. In December of 1915, an Ussuri brown bear attacked and killed seven villagers over six days before it was shot dead. At the time of its death, the bear weighed nearly 750 pounds and stood nine-feet-tall — small compared to the 1,200 pounds that the Ussuri bears on the Northern Japanese island are known to reach.
A heavy rain fell on Hokkaido on Sunday, and as police expanded their search for the missing Japanese boy on Monday morning, many were afraid of the state in which they may find him. Aside from the bears roaming Hokkaido, temperatures on the island dropped to seven degrees Celsius overnight, in addition to the fact that the boy has been without food or water since being abandoned by his parents Saturday afternoon.
[Image via Police handout]
