Deer

Location: Nara, Japan

There's a city near Kyoto (Nara) that's famous for having free-roaming deer. The deer are mostly found in Nara Park, but it's easy to spot deer elsewhere in the city.

They generally know to walk on sidewalks, and they seem to understand how to safely cross the street at intersections. I don't know if they understand the pedestrian walk signals, or if they just wait alongside humans who are also trying to cross the street. Probably the latter.

I went to Nara Park. I saw a few people petting the deer. I didn't know if that was safe, or recommended, but I gave it a shot. The deer I decided to pet was completely indifferent to my presence. Its skin twitched when I touched it. I think that's a reflex to keep flies from landing on it.

I followed a group of tourists to a giant temple. There was a large paved area in front of the temple, with vendors selling food for the deer, and dozens of tourists buying said food and feeding the deer.

I've been told my whole life to never feed wildlife, but these deer weren't exactly wild. I bought a sleeve of deer biscuits and a few deer immediately started bullying me for the biscuits. They were pushing me around with their snouts, and they weren't being gentle about it. I pushed back on one of their heads, pretty hard, but that didn't deter it. I was getting concerned for my safety, considering that I was surrounded by three or four deer and each one probably weighed more than I did. I don't know why those deer singled me out. It didn't seem like any of the other tourists were being mugged by deer.

I tried to trick the deer. I fed them a biscuit with one hand, while dumping the rest of the biscuits into a pocket with my other hand. I showed them the empty plastic wrapper. They didn't fall for it. They didn't know where I had put the rest of the biscuits, but they knew I still had them somewhere.

Out of frustration, I threw all the biscuits on the ground and walked away. The deer ate the biscuits and wandered off.