How the pandemic is affecting Nara Park deer.

Japan’s famed Nara deer have been considered national treasures for decades. But the recent pandemic has led to a drastic decrease in tourists visiting Nara Park, which has meant that the deer have had to revert to their normal food source instead of the nutrient packed rice crackers, but are now roaming further away from the park in search of something similar.

Nara, a small city and former Japanese capital south of Kyoto, is heaving with Sika deer and has been for centuries.

According to Japanese locals, the deer living in Nara Park, a famous tourist spot in Japan, have been searching through garbage bags in shopping alleys. Nara Park has unfortunately become almost deserted as the number of tourists has sharply declined since the outbreak of the pandemic. Nara Park is home to more than 1,200 free roaming deer who are protected by law.

The main food source for deers in Nara Park are grass and fallen leaves. However, many deer have grown dependent to “Shika Senbei” - wheat and rice bran cookies fed to them by tourists. A saleswoman of shika senbei has worryingly commented on the health and welfare of the deer in the park by saying: -

"I've been seeing many thin deer. Some of them have swelled abdomens so I wonder if they ate something they couldn't digest."

The “deers crackers” supposedly have a nutritional value that higher than the deer’s normal food source of grass and fallen leaves, and are the reason that the deer in Nara Park are so fond of the crackers. Although some deer have naturally swapped to eating more grass as a result of the decline in tourists,  there are still many that have lost a worrying amount of weight and have been seen roaming further away from Nara Park in search of shika senbei or something similar.

Although the deer normally eat around 60 crackers a day, a survey previously showed that some deer had up to 200 rice crackers a day, causing Professor Shirow Tachizawa of Hokkaido University to speculate that many of the deer have actually become addicted to the crackers and hence are unable to adapt to their new (and perhaps normal) dietary changes as a result of the pandemic.

Prior to the pandemic, visitors were allowed to feed the deer specially-made sugar-free crackers which do not come in plastic packaging. However, many visitors are believed to feed the deer other snacks, discarding food wrappers along the way, with the deer smelling the food and then eating them. However, just last year, one deer was found with more than 4kg of rubbish in its stomach. But recently, a group of locals have come up with a solution - a paper bag made with rice bran that the deer can digest.

Nara resident Takahi Nakamura created the paper bags and said that around 3,500 bags have been sold to around six local companies, including the city’s tourism bureau, a local bank and a pharmacy. These bags have been tested by the Food Research Laboratories in Japan, which have said they are safe for consumption.

Courtesy of Daphne Ng.

Sources: The Mainichi, Japan Today, BBC