Petrifying moment mountain climber is attacked by a bear while he clings to rockface

A Japanese climber captured the terrifying moment he was attacked by a wild bear on camera.

The man was pounced on while scaling a rocky ridge on Mount Futago alone in a rural area miles from the nearest town.

He only managed to survive my swinging punches at kicks at the animal as it returned for several attempts on the climber.

In the hair-raising footage, the unnamed man can be heard screaming in an attempt to frighten the bear off and raise the alarm.

At several points it came so close he was forced to physically strike the fearsome animal. 

Remarkably, he managed to escape unharmed and made it down the mountain to safety.

In a description of the incident, he wrote on Youtube: ‘Instead of fear, I switched to the feeling that if it was coming, I had no choice but to face it.

‘Looking back at the video, it seems that the bear attacked me to protect the cub.

‘I invaded bear territory, but since they attacked me, I defended myself with self-defense.

‘I learned karate when I was a child, but I liked mixed martial arts now, so maybe I could use hammer fist instead of punches.’

He continued: ‘The bear family went down, so I climbed back up to the summit. After taking a breather, I returned the way I came and descended.

‘My hands were scratched and cut from desperately holding on to the rock.

‘My right wrist was slightly sprained after hammering the rock and the bear.’

The species involved in the attack appears to be a Japanese black bear, a relatively small kind which grows up to 260lb.

The larger Ussuri or Ezo brown bear is native to Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido.

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