Japanese office worker tried to catch a train, but was mauled by a wild boar instead
- The 48-year-old was walking to Imajuku Station in the suburbs of Fukuoka when the boar suddenly charged him from an alley
A Japanese office worker was charged, butted and bitten by a wild boar while on his way to his local railway station.
Japanese media said the 48-year-old salaryman was walking to Imajuku Station in the suburbs of the city of Fukuoka at 7am on October 26 when the boar suddenly charged him from an alley.
The incident was caught on video and posted on Twitter by a user called @ Koki 915 N. It has already been viewed more than 3 million times.
Local media said the railway station is around half a mile from the mountains and the boar is believed to have wandered into town from the foothills. After running into a dead-end between a pharmacy and a chain-link fence, the animal made a dash for freedom, upending the commuter, before biting him, goring him with its tusks and even going after his briefcase.
Two passing cars honked their horns in hopes of frightening the animal away.
The man was taken to hospital where he was treated for wounds on both legs, including a gash on his left thigh that needed eight stitches and one on his right knee that needed five stitches, the daily Mainichi Shimbun reported.
The boar was spotted later that day near the coast and killed by members of a local hunting club.
Only days after that attack, a man on a motorbike collided with a boar at night at Kyushu University in Fukuoka, breaking bones in four fingers.
Fukuoka Prefecture suffers considerable crop damage because of wild boars, and the local government is working with local hunters to cull 1,500 boars a year, but usually falls short of that target due to budget restrictions and a lack of hunters.
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But when Japanese media reported that two boars had fallen into a dry reservoir in Kitakyushu in the same prefecture last month, the local government was surprised to be inundated with hundreds of calls asking for them to be rescued rather than killed. The boars were duly rescued and released back into the wild.
