Roundup: Young boy abandoned in Hokkaido's bear country found alive in remote forest after parents lied to police

A small boy was found alive in the remote mountainous area of Shikabe in Hokkaido in Japan's north on Friday morning after being abandoned there six days earlier by his parents who then lied to the police about their son's disappearance, local police and search and rescue officials said.

The boy who has now been identified as the missing Yamato Tanooka, a 7-year-old who was last seen around 5 p.m. (local time) on Saturday on a path in a mountain forest six days ago, after his parents dumped him on the side of the road from their car, allegedly for disciplinary measures.

The boy was found at around 7:50 a.m. on Friday morning by Self-Defense Forces personnel in the town of Shikabe in Hokkaido, where they were doing training exercises in the area, about 5 kilometers away from the town of Nanae where he was abandoned by his parents on Saturday evening.

As many as 200 police officers and firefighters, as well as SDF personnel, along with helicopters, and rescuers using horses, had been searching for the missing boy for the past six days, but hopes had been fading fast for a safe recovery as fresh water sources and food in the area are limited and the region had been experiencing heavy downpours with temperatures falling below freezing at night.

More worryingly, as Japan's "Twitterati" have pointed out in the story that has gone viral on social media sites since it first broke, is the fact that the forested region where the boy went missing is home to Hokkaido's Ussuri brown bear, sometimes known as the black grizzly, and is one the biggest and most ferocious of its specials and has been known in the past to attack, maul and kill humans.

One Twitter user commented, "I think it's utterly deplorable that a child's parents could do this. They should be punished."

Another said, "He's been missing for so long without food or water, I can only imagine the bears got him. How tragic."

But the story took a turn for the better on Friday when SDF troops located the boy who said he had wandered alone through the forests for days believing his parents had discarded him for good, until he found an SDF training area and a shelter. The boy was able to survive from heavy rainfall in the area due to the shelter, although SDF personnel said there was no food or water stored there.

The shelter had initially been searched on the previous Monday, rescue officials said, but at that time there was no evidence the boy had been staying there.

When they recovered the boy, rescue forces said he looked famished and dirty and had scratches on his body, but described his condition as being not too bad. The rescuers said when they found him they were absolutely ecstatic as they had feared for the worst, believing their mission was one of a body retrieval and not a search and rescue operation, and erupted into joyous applause.

They said he ate rice balls given to him with gusto and gulped down water as soon as it was offered to him, in a sign his small body had been severely depleted of water and essential food nutrients.

He was then briskly transported to a hospital in Hakodate and following tests and treatment for his injuries, including fatigue, malnutrition, hypothermia and dehydration, was later reunited with his parents and sister.

A doctor at the hospital was quoted as saying that Tanooka had been hooked up to an IV drip to combat dehydration and the possible effects of hypothermia owing to the frigid conditions in the mountainous forests, in Japan's north, which had been compounded by heavy rain in the region.

At the boy's school, upon hearing the news that their classmate had been found alive the school principal said that the entire elementary school erupted into screams of joy and tears of relief and happiness, with Tanooka's principal and class teacher quoted as saying they were on their way to the hospital to visit him.

"I want to tell him that he did a great job, and was brave," the school's vice principal was quoted as telling local media.

As for Tanooka's parents who have been vilified in the press and online for what some critics have described as child abuse, his father was quoted as saying: "I feel very sorry for the boy as I came down hard on him."

The father said he told his son he was truly sorry for his actions when they were reunited today and in a statement issued to the public also apologized for causing such national and international concern and described his hardline parenting measure as being "overly excessive."

The missing boy's parents had first told local investigators that their son had simply disappeared when their family was collecting plants to eat, the police said, adding that the parents then later backtracked on their blatant lie and told investigators that they had deliberately left him on the side of the road after kicking him out of their car and driven away, as some form of disciplinary measure for the child's misbehavior.

Tanooka's father said they tried to search for their son for about half an hour in vain and then decided to contact the police, who they then initially lied to about the reason behind the boy's near-fatal disappearance.

On news of his safe recovery this morning, the tone online, having been one that had singularly chastised the parents as callous child abusers, turned far more upbeat, with one Twitter user jesting "I guess he wasn't delicious enough for the bears" while others suggesting the boy may have had specials superpowers that kept him safe, alluding to the latest X-Men Hollywood movie.

"I think his parents should now be made to spend six days in bear country with no food or water, maybe that will teach them how to discipline their child in the future," another Twitter user wrote.

To the joy of the internet that has been buzzing with this story, the hospital has issued a statement recently saying that the boy's condition is improving by stages and that he is responding well to treatment. Enditem