A recent news report that a pregnant Nara Park deer was killed by a crossbow bolt fired by a restaurateur from Wakayama Prefecture who was strapped for cash and looking to sell the meat was a sobering reminder of just how vulnerable the 1,000-plus deer living in the park really are.
Although there is nowhere else in Japan where wild deer come into such close contact with humans, perhaps they fit in with the central Nara landscape so naturally that many people — locals and tourists alike — pay little attention to the lives of these "holy envoys of the gods."
Nara City native Chiharu Fukumoto, 28, is one who most certainly does pay close attention to the city's herd. But even as one of 11 employees of the nonprofit conservation group the Foundation for the Protection of Deer in Nara Park, she says that while she was growing up, she, too, paid the deer little heed.