This post is continued from yesterday’s Nara Park Deer know Postive Reinforcement too!
The deer at Nara Park have learnt from years of experience that if they bow to you, you will give them deer biscuits.
The practice of feeding the deer by tourists made the deer less shy to approach human visitors. The deer are not unlike dogs. If they smell the deer biscuit on you, they will start to trail after you in the hopes of being treated.
In fact, the deer keep their eyes peeled on the visitors in the area and will go to great lengths to follow them.
This deer struggled with crossing over the fence to get to the other side in pursuit of the lady running away.
The deer also mill around the street of shops facing the wooded areas. Deer biscuits can be bought along this street.
And when they’ve locked on their target, they can be persistent.
Besides the polite bowing, the deer have also learnt from past experience that the humans give up the biscuits when they are pursued. So these deer can be stubborn about following you about, going as far as to bite the human teasing them with the food.
It can get a little overwhelming for visitors because if there were a lot of deer around, they could swarm the visitor handing out the biscuits. And then the human surrenders the biscuit in order to distract them while they make their escape, not unlike this person in the picture.
So while the deer are positively reinforced to bow to the visitors for their biscuit, they have not been trained in any other way and are still wild animals that may hurt you.
But I suspect this happens more to people who deliberately tease them and get them riled up about the food. Mr P and I didn’t have much problems evading the more persistent ones, so it was a pretty interesting day for us, getting up close to the deer of Nara Park. :)
Related
 |
 |
 |
Susan C. Willett
That sign picture is hilarious. I guess you have to watch out for the deer, or they’ll kick you or push you down.
savedbydogss
I love the sign too – “do not crouch down, or deer may dance on your head with heavy hoofs!”
Guilie Castillo
Super interesting to read–and see!–a bit of this faraway park. Don’t you love the internet? It’s got its downsides, but this make-the-world-a-handkerchief is weighty on the upsides. Thanks for the virtual tourism!
Guilie @ Life In Dogs
weliveinaflat
Definitely! I love how it makes it all so easy for us to connect with each other, despite living in different parts of the world ;) Glad you enjoyed it.
Mel
Holy cow. How fascinating and interesting. Yes. It seems food works for a lot of animals beyond dogs.
Incredible.
jansfunnyfarmj
The bowing deer sounded cute. The stalking deer sound kind of scary. Would imagine there have been many who teased them and that’s not good. As you said, they’re still wild animals. But cute.
weliveinaflat
I guess it’s like dogs, a begging dog sounds cute but an aggressive dog sounds scary. But they’re really quite ok as long as we don’t do anything that can signal harm to them. Though I certainly can’t red deer body language!
Kyla
Keep it coming. We all are learning new techniques.
weliveinaflat
I shall wait to read about you putting it into good use ;)
Tenacious Little Terrier
Sounds like a fun outing! Those deer do not sound like they should be messed with.
weliveinaflat
They’re generally quite ok :)
OhMelvin
I’m torn over whether i find this adorable or terrifying!
2browndawgs
Personally, I don’t think it is ever a good idea to hand feed wild animals for many of the reasons you write. I know there are zoos and other places that allow it, but not a good idea when the animals are allowed to wander.