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Wild Life
Nara, the ancient capital of Japan.
Nara is famous for its wild deers.
There are as many wild deers as there are in the world.
The number of deers is about 1,300.
This time, we got very close to these deers.
The parents work hard to protect their wild deers.
The males fight desperately to save their lives.
Sometimes, they even bare their fangs to humans.
They are wild animals.
People have developed their knowledge of living together.
Even in this world, only humans and deers live together.
This is a well-known story.
Nara, which once flourished as the last stop on Silk Road, is now home to more than 1,200 old shrines and temples located in the city.
Famous "todaiji" statues and such cultural assets are also registered as world heritage.
Recently, tourists from abroad have been increasing in number.
That number is nearly 2 million people per year.
It has quadrupled in the past ten years.
Old streets are not the only thing you can see.
Yes, deers.
Deers walking freely around tourists.
These are Japanese deers that live widely in Japan.
Deer with horns and female deers without horns.
Nara deers have a general deer specialty of living in paddy fields.
Even if they are surrounded by children, they don't care much.
They are very cautious of humans.
Nara park where you can get in touch with deers up close.
Overseas, you can only see deer parks and deer parks in Japan.
Nara park where you can get in touch with deers up close.
Overseas, you can only see deer parks and deer parks in Japan.
Oh, deer. I think it's cool.
Yes, it's very surprising. You just wouldn't see this in America.
They are not shy at all.
Not in Nara.
They are not shy. That's very strange.
There is really a communion between the nature, the deers and the people.
And for us it's pretty amazing.
Deers live in one corner of the center of Nara city.
It's about two kilometers east-west and three kilometers south-north.
Kasuga Taisha and Todaiji stand side by side and Nara park expands around here.
Forests and lawns are left as deer prefer.
According to a survey in 2018, there are 1,360 deers living in one area.
It is a much higher biodiversity density than general Japanese deers.
These deers are not known to be wild animals.
They are not bought by someone.
What kind of life do they live?
We started shooting in spring.
First, let's take a look at a deer's day.
It's past five in the morning.
Deers, who woke up in a dim forest, start moving at once.
It stopped at the edge of the forest.
It checks safety and starts walking again.
This place is called "tobihino" in the vicinity of Kasuga Taisha Temple.
Huge lawns spread out.
The main food of Nara's deers is such plants.
They eat about 5 kilograms of food per day.
There are many other large lawns in the area.
Thanks to such food places, many deers can live.
This beautiful lawn.
People do not care for it at all.
Thanks to deers, it is kept clean.
Deers eat various things every season.
Cherry blossoms that brightly colored Nara's spring.
A deer appeared there.
They gather under the tree and eat petals.
Japanese deer can eat various foods depending on season and habitat.
Now that there is little food in winter, cherry blossoms are also a feast for Nara's deer.
At nine in the morning, tourists are increasing.
Deer have finished their meal.
They are taking a rest to digest their meal.
There is one more famous deer food in Nara.
Deer rice cracker.
Deer ask tourists for this rice cracker.
Speaking of Nara's deer, many people think of this scene.
But for deer, it is like a snack after eating a lot of grass.
In the evening, deer gather in the grass again.
Early in the morning and in the evening, deer have more appetite.
When it gets dark, tourists are going back to their homes.
and go back to the forest.
Although it is close to the urban area, there are many forests that have not been developed yet.
This is the underground house.
It is cautious of its surroundings and becomes a group and rests.
There is no longer a wolf that used to be a natural enemy, but the instinct to avoid danger remains the same as in the past.
Nara's deer have lived like this for a long time, using the nature in the city.
So how did the relationship between Nara's people and deer begin?
There is an old picture of a legend that became the trigger of it left in Nara's national treasure hall.
It is a scene when a god named "takemikazuchi no mikoto" descended on Nara long ago.
The god who appeared in human form is a white male deer with a fine horn.
Since ancient times, deer have been specialized by Nara's people as gods' servants and messengers.
However, as time goes down, in the 20th century, deer, which were close to 900, are exhausted in the chaos caused by war.
After the war, the luck of the people of the city, who try to cherish deer, increases and protection is proceeded.
And in 1957, the deer of Nara was designated as a national natural monument.
God's servant and natural monument, deer and human have been deeply involved in this land for more than a thousand years.
I have seen it while proceeding with the shooting.
It is a unique sense of distance between people living in Nara and deer.
Early in the morning, there was a flock of deer entering the territory of Nara Prefecture.
Their target is the grass in the courtyard.
As it is not stepped on by people like a park, soft and easy-to-eat grass is growing.
The guards come to patrol in the morning, but there is no sound.
They continue to eat silently.
Even if people come to work, they don't care about each other.
It's a big difference from the reaction of tourists.
Deer start running because they are surprised by something.
They look at the road side at once.
It is a little strange, but in Nara's city, it is a common everyday scenery.
Only running down the street.
Even at times like this, the locals don't stop anyone.
Here is a two-story house with a familiar look of a residential area.
The one who came is...
Nara Girls' University.
Entering from the west gate.
We got permission to film and entered the site.
Ah, there he is!
The deers' goal is, as expected, food.
Even in the university, the deers don't get in anyone's way and grow grass.
Deers who have become humans and locals who have become deers.
This unique relationship is the proof that people and deers have lived together in Nara's city for many years.
In mid-May...
Around Todaiji, Nigatsudo, female deers were gathering.
Their bellies are getting bigger.
They give birth once a year.
There was a change in one of them.
Not only humans, but also deers are getting bored in the bush where deers usually do not enter.
The alertness has increased considerably.
They decided to observe from a distance.
Two hours later, the baby came out little by little, wrapped in a blanket.
The mother checks the baby.
She sits and stands repeatedly.
He was born.
The baby's head is still covered with wool.
When her mother breaks the membrane, her face comes out. How cute!
She immediately starts drinking her father's milk.
The mother continues to lick the baby's body.
In this way, she dries the wet body.
Thirty minutes later, the baby stands up.
It seems that she finally stands up on her thin legs.
She is not a shepherd, but a Nara deer who lives with people.
Once again, a new life was born.
As soon as they are born, they don't interact with their mothers yet.
They hide under trees and other unnoticeable places.
Babies continue to wait until their mothers return.
Here is the mother. Where is the baby?
Here he is.
He is actually wary of crows.
Crows can be a terrible enemy for small children.
Sometimes, they can even take your life.
Someday after birth, the baby begins to follow his mother.
However, they still walk side by side.
Mothers cannot go out together.
Even in the light of the lighthouse, you can see the mother like this.
It is the season of school trip.
Deer with small children stand out above all else.
All of them are born in a flash.
This mother also hid her child in a crack of a stone to go out for a meal.
However, it is right next to the shrine. People pass by one after another.
A restless mother. She can't leave her child.
People have gathered around the orphanage.
The orphanage has started to move.
The mother rushes to the orphanage.
Although she is used to people, mother rushes to the orphanage is very nervous and tries to keep her child away from people.
At that moment, she attacks a person nearby.
Even for us who were filming from a distance.
Watch out!
Even for walkable dogs,
Don't go!
they look different from their usual quiet appearance.
At times like this, some people rush in by being alerted.
Nara's deer protection meeting. They are doing deer protection activities.
First of all, they protect the calf as soon as possible.
Then, the mother.
They let the calf sleep in pure water so as not to rampage and get injured.
The mother and calf are loaded into the car.
It was brought to a deer protection facility called "rokuen" near Sando of Kasuga Company.
It is the birth season of deers.
At "rokuen", female deers are brought in like every day.
Many of them are pregnant females.
A female woke up from anesthesia.
Looking around,
many females with the same size of belly are gathered.
In fact, about 80% of pregnant deers in Nara are protected like this to "rokuen" before giving birth.
They give birth in this environment and raise children for a while.
"hajika", which becomes rougher with birth,
prevents collisions with people like this.
Some mothers give birth and raise their children with little income.
Such mothers have their own difficulties unique to tourism.
Tourists accidentally touched the mother deer.
Whether this mother deer is weak-spirited or not, it does not attack people.
However, when people smell it, the mother deer may become cautious and not approach the mother deer.
This person also held it in his arms.
The mother deer is in panic.
Even if it is not bad for tourists, it must be a nuisance for the deer.
One day, a mother deer found a baby deer crying at the root of a tree.
There is no mother-like deer around. I don't know why, but it seems to have separated.
She started walking.
Was she a mother? She is praying for her father, but she is not a mother.
Every time a female chika passes by, she approaches, but no female gives her father.
Mother chika is said to distinguish her own children by smell.
Giving a father to a stranger is not an exception.
Even in the evening, his mother didn't show up.
It seems like she took a rest under a tree.
It will be difficult for him to find her tomorrow.
The next morning...
Something unexpected had happened.
A wild boar had died.
It had wounds in its eyes, a dented stomach, and its organs had been eaten.
It seemed like a crow had done it.
Nara's deer are only wild animals.
They lose about 30% of their lives before they reach one year of age.
They live with severe fate.
NIGHT
In the forest where the deers live, various animals appear.
Oh, it's a hippopotamus. It came out of the drainpipe.
It sniffs the smell of the ground and looks for food.
It is ear water.
It is a sip of water.
Something is flying.
It is a wasp's nest.
It is a fruit of a tree or a new mega object.
It flies from tree to tree and looks for food.
There were parents and children as well. Children follow them around.
Parents fly to them.
It's children's turn.
They flew away.
These animals have also saved lives in this forest where people have protected.
They encountered an unexpected event in the forest at dawn.
A group of crows are making a fuss.
A big one is catching a crow.
All they have to do is to finish it off.
However, the crows around it are trying to fly higher and higher.
They are attacking one by one.
The caught crow is trying to escape.
The deers are also making a fuss and gathering here.
What a surprise! The one who ran away is a big one!
The power of crows' group. I can't underestimate it!
Summer is in full swing.
Deer gather in water and shade to avoid heat during the day.
Deer are not good at adjusting their body temperature.
Maybe that's why they are so calm.
Over the past few years, in summer evenings, deer have begun to take strange actions.
Deer are gathering in narrow lawns next to the road.
It's unusual way of gathering. What's going on?
This phenomenon is called "deer crowd" in my hometown.
Deer in Nara usually gather and rest before going back to the forest at night.
But only in summer, for some reason, it doubles in size.
We still don't know the reason of the crowd gathering.
Fifteen minutes later, as if nothing had happened, deer went back to the forest.
Deer protection facility, Rokuen.
At the end of July, it's time for deer to be released.
Deer have grown up a lot.
Now, mother deer don't have to worry about harming others.
Deer gather in front of the fence.
Deer rush out of the fence.
From this day on, the mother cat will live on her own in Nara's city.
Nara's deers have their own difficulties due to living in the city.
A deer that was protected in the park died for unknown reasons.
When we looked into it, plastic bags that were entangled with each other came out of its stomach.
It ate so much that its stomach was full and died.
Sometimes it becomes a ball and you can't get it off.
Even if there are so many of them, they get in the way and food doesn't flow out of them.
As tourists increase, more deers mistake plastic bags and paper for food.
Even if it's paper, it doesn't digest paint and it solidifies in the stomach and eats the deer's body.
Volunteers also pick up garbage.
But since there are so many tourists, it's normal that they can't completely prevent it.
One day, a car of an old man was brought into an amusement park.
He was protected from getting into an accident and not being able to move on the road anymore.
After the examination, the lower body is paralyzed and does not move at all.
She covers her eyes and pushes out urine so as not to get excited.
If the bladder bursts or the urethra is reversed toward the kidney due to urinary incontinence, toxins will accumulate all over the body and cause the worst death, so you will die if you do not pee.
In 2018, 129 deers died in a traffic accident that occurred in Nara Park as a whole.
Local drivers are careful enough to drive their deers.
Even so, more than 100 accidents occur every year.
In particular, there are many accidents in the morning and at night.
Most of them are cases in which deers suddenly jump out onto the road and cannot be avoided.
Deers are used to the city environment where cars can survive.
To reduce accidents, humans have to be careful.
In summer, the number of small accidents that follow the mother deer also begins to increase.
This small deer also lost its lower body paralyzed and lost its life.
In Nara, a city where humans and wild deers live together and where even in the world deers are rare,
people have faced various pressures and challenges.
At the end of summer, a violent typhoon hit Nara.
It is said that it has been 25 years since the last typhoon of this size.
A strong wind blows as if it is going to knock down everything standing.
Deer were hiding in the forest.
They were running around in surprise of strong wind.
They can't stand strong wind and even tree is falling down from root.
Storm has passed away.
Damage is more than we imagined.
Many trees fell down in Kasuga Taisha area and blocked road.
Repair work will begin soon.
Will the deers be OK?
Deers are here.
Deers gather on broken trees and eat leaves.
Deers eat a lot of high places' leaves which they can't eat in daily life.
Deers have been living without losing to rough nature.
September.
Mysterious sounds resound in the forest.
It is the howl of a half-eaten male.
In addition, it is the voice of autumn.
Many songs have been sung since ancient times, including "Manyo-shu".
Males appear from the forest.
Their horns are sharply pointed.
In this season, males rub their horns against the trunk of trees and sharpen their horns.
They look like soldiers who are preparing weapons.
In this case, they dig soft ground back and rub mud on their bodies.
This is their preparation for appealing to females.
It is a characteristic behavior of half-eaten males.
They raise their heads and pose for fear.
They raise their thick howls and overwhelm young males nearby.
Here, too.
Males around them are rivals of love.
Days of battle begin.
It is a characteristic behavior of half-eaten males.
Early in the morning, males gather one after another for females who gather for meals.
This male is aggressively threatening, but…
A big male from the left.
He tries to fight back without losing, but…
Ah, he ran away.
Here, they are fighting fiercely.
It's a fight.
A sharply sharpened horn is an important tool for battle.
But, for humans, males of this season are a little troublesome.
In the afternoon, the battle is sudden.
The male is asking tourists for a pancake.
What is troublesome is this sharply sharpened horn.
Sometimes, a sharp horn pierces the eye and makes you blind.
Sometimes, a sharp horn makes you blind.
It is also a tourist season in autumn in Orishi.
Something like this happened.
A tourist from abroad, surprised by the momentum of the deers, fell and got injured.
At this time of year, people who do deers protection activities are the busiest.
In order not to have an accident, they protect the deers from where people gather in order.
A big one like this, over 80 kilograms, is quite a heavy job.
After measuring their size, they cut their horns with a saw.
Deer horns grow back naturally every year in spring.
By cutting it off early with human hands, they prevent accidents.
Deer "horn cutting" has been done in Nara since ancient times.
Even now, you can see the traditional way of doing it.
Deer "horn cutting"
"horn cutting" reappeared in 1953, when it was temporarily suspended due to war.
They burned their hands and worked hard in a sweat due to a large rampage of deers.
For the people of Nara, deers were not just animals but gods' servants.
Even if it was inconvenient for people, there was no choice but to take their lives.
For many centuries, people of Nara have been looking for a way to live with deers.
We finally caught it.
Five adults will hold it down.
Deer horns cut off are raised high.
I wonder how difficult it was to cut horns in the past.
However, it is an important horn for deers.
What will happen to deers after this?
After horn cutting, deers go back to where they were the next day.
Deers approach deers with horns and push each other.
There is no sign of deers without horns.
Deers without horns win.
Normally, deers with strong horns have an advantage in fighting,
but this male deer does not lose its momentum even if its horns are cut off.
In a long history, deers have lived with humans and have been strong.
In this world, deers have lived with humans and have been strong.
In early October, they found a particularly large male deer in a forest along the roadside.
The magnificent horns of the deer have not yet been cut.
During the day, unlike other male deer, it does not try to leave the forest.
It is a cautious male deer that does not approach humans by itself.
It surrounds about 20 females in a circle.
In nature, it is a breeding season-specific behavior seen in strong males.
I named it "owner" and decided to observe it.
The owner's circle is located at the end of Kasuga Taisha's forest.
It is about 20 meters square in size and surrounds the road.
Early in the morning, another male comes up to the roadside.
When the male notices it and runs away, the female runs away in a hurry.
Another male comes up again.
The male chases him away.
It is difficult for the male because of the high fertility density of the male.
Because the males around him are approaching one after another,
the male has no time to rest.
The male's hard work does not stop here.
This time, the female, who was surrounded, has escaped.
The male chases her.
He turns around and stops the female's progression.
She went out onto the road.
In a hurry, she returns to the forest and returns the female back to her own path.
The male continues to wait for the female, which he has surrounded, to hatch.
He can't let the female escape here.
Whether there are no intruders or the female hasn't escaped, he can't let his guard down even for a moment.
This is the peak of breeding season.
Males like this one protect their nests with almost no mask pressure.
Once again, a male has run out of the nest.
A female is trying to escape from the nest.
Another male is approaching from behind.
The male has run out of energy and has finally jumped out of the nest.
A few days later, a male has been brought into the deer protection facility in the park.
He has a big body and big horns.
He is "the owner".
In order to chase away the approaching male, he has been jumping out frequently near visitors, and finally his horns will be cut off.
The next day.
The male has returned to the meadow.
The female that was surrounded seems to have gone somewhere.
The male's excitement is at its peak in the surrounding meadow.
A headless horned man and a headbutt match.
When he finds a female horned man, he rushes to catch her.
In this way, the deers of Nara have always been able to connect people's lives right next to them.
In the past, in the chaos of war, the number of deers of Nara reduced to only 79.
After the war, the number of deers increased little by little and now there are 1360 deers.
It is proof that peaceful times have lasted for humans and deers for a long time.
In the autumn sun,
the males who finished breeding have returned to their original calm faces.
The children will follow their mother for a while.
A harsh winter is coming soon.
Deers of Nara have lived a long history.
As people live their lives, their lives come to an end.