Lol, I had no idea he did that but it doesn't surprise me! We watch his channel on YouTube sometimes. That's how I grew up too, we had loads of unstructured time outside and were unsupervised 99% of the time. I guess, statistically, it's safer now than it was then but I question the accuracy of that data sometimes. It must be super safe there in Japan. Are the young children there as addicted to devices or do parents impose some kind of limits'boundaries?
Good idea to use the opportunity to teach. I don't remember having that instinct to harm as a kid. There were definitely one or two kids on the block that had a sadistic streak though. My mom taught us to do the same thing with creatures that got into the house. I think my brother and I still will "catch and release" if possible. We had a bat problem in our last house and we got quite proficient at herding those things out the door.