Humans Living Alongside Brown Bears | 4KUHD | Japan: Earth's Enchanted Islands | BBC Earth

She needs to put food in the mouths of her two young cubs. There's a bitter winter coming and if they're not well fed her cubs won't make it through. This is a hard place to be a mum. The family is not alone. This peninsula is home to 200 brown bears. It's one of the most densely packed populations in the world. The salmon bonanza has attracted others here too. Nobody lives permanently in this remote part of Hokkaido. But one hardy group have special permission to stay here for some of the year. Hokkaido is Japan's second largest island. But the harsh conditions mean it's home to only four percent of its people. Shirotoko is one of the loneliest corners where you have to live close to the wild. Brown bears can weigh 300 kilos and are not to be messed with. When bears and humans cross paths things can get dangerous. But here something astonishing has happened. For the fishermen bears have become a part of everyday life. It takes some nerve but the men live alongside them as equals. Tough characters side by side both dependent on the salmon run. The mother bear knows what she's doing. Survival is in her blood. Her ancestors came to Hokkaido from Siberia and they walked here. 12,000 years ago Hokkaido was joined to the Russian mainland. Siberian animals colonized it before the sea levels rose turning Hokkaido into an island. It's why the wildlife here is so different from the rest of Japan and so well equipped to face the coming winter. you