Here they are... The sacred deer of the Japanese temples! I captured these photos at the Itsukushima Shrine near Hiroshima as well as the Todaiji Temple and Kasuga Taisha Shrine in Nara, Japan. A unique facet of Japanese holy places is the fact that the native deer are considered sacred and roam freely.
In fact, the deer are so sacred that up until 1637, it was a capital offense to hunt these deer. Today, wild deer still roam and have become accustomed to visitors. They intermingle with people and are not at all timid! People do feed them specifically selected treats available for purchase.
Some of the deer do get aggressive if one has treats and is not sharing or is teasing. I had a few deer nip at my clothing and one even shoved me! I hope you get the same odd feeling I did upon being surrounded by deer in a tourist location! These were all taken with my Fuji XT-2 and 18-55mm f/2.9 lens.
Each picture can be clicked for a high-resolution version:
Headbutt!
A tourist takes a selfie with a deer!
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wow that is a trip! I think of deer as such skittish animals usually, of course. I literally had a deer hit me once in a car. I didn't hit it... I had come to a complete halt because there was another deer in the road in front of me, frozen by my headlights. And then, WHAM, out of nowhere, another deer I hadn't seen in the ditch jumped out of the ditch and straight into my side-panel, denting it, then jumped back off the road. LOL
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Yes, it was crazy to see the deer so acclimated to human presence and interacting with them.
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