He was more a chub than a bear, but I once dated a dad from Fukui, so this kind of makes sense to me. I'm not sure how fond he was of persimmons though.
The less fun aspect of this news is that it's been unseasonably warm in Japan this year (as high as 25 celcius in Tokyo last week). There's been an uptick in bear activity and it may be that their hybernation cycles have been thrown off.