is one of the three founding members of the Shinshu Tsukinowaguma Kenkiyu Kai, or Shinshu Asiatic Black Bear Conservation Group. He is a citizen of the Netherlands, but he was born and raised in France, on a farm. He moved to the United States of America at the age of 20 in 1985, and lived in the states of Wyoming and Montana for 6 years. Together, these two Rocky Mountain states are almost twice the size of Japan but are occupied by less than 1.5 million people! Nature is big there! While there Oscar first worked as a cowboy on two of the largest cattle ranches in the country, as well as as a sheep herder in the Rocky Mountains just a few kilometers north of Yellowstone National Park, where he had to protect a band of 1500 sheep from American black and grizzly bear attacks. He then became a student at Montana State University from which he graduated with Honors in Agricultural-Economics. Oscar then moved to Matsumoto, Japan, where he first taught English and French classes. He became a graduate student at Shinshu University in 1995 and co-founded the Shinshu Tsukinowaguma Kenkiyu Kai with Pr. Hayashi and Dr. Izumiyama. Oscar specialized on the ecology and conservation of Asiatic black bears and obtained his Doctorate from Shinshu University in 2001.