About 150 rescue workers have resumed a search of a wooded area on Hokkaido, the northern-most of Japan’s four main islands.
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The search for the seven-year-old will enter its third day on Monday.
Yamato Tanooka, his mother and father had gone to pick wild vegetables in the countryside on Hokkaido, Japan’s largest northern island.
The parents initially told police they lost their son during a hike. The boy’s own parents said that they and had actually left their 7-year-old alone in the forest deliberately.
However, they later admitted to police they left Yamato behind on goal.
The missing boy’s father said that he had not dared to tell the whole truth when first reporting Yamato missing and requesting help from others in the search.
Now they have admitted they lied, and abandoned him in the area populated by brown bears to teach him a lesson.
Kyodo News said that police were investigating whether the case is subject to child abandonment.
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The enraged parents who wanted to teach their child manners left him in the mountains on the way home and walked around 500 m away from him before returning back. According to the Japan Times, there have been 86 attacks by bears in Hokkaido on humans with 33 deaths since 1962.
