BETSUKAI, Hokkaido—While bear sightings and attacks have surged in northern Japan, wild deer are also causing a record number of traffic accidents in Hokkaido.
In 2024, 5,460 vehicle accidents involving Hokkaido sika deer were reported, up 4.7-fold from 1,170 in 2004, according to Hokkaido police.
The rise in accidents coincides with the increase in the deer population.
The Hokkaido sika deer is a subspecies of the sika deer, which is native to much of East Asia.
A male Hokkaido sika deer can grow up to 190 centimeters long and weigh 150 kilograms.
A collision with such deer can cause serious damage to an automobile, threatening the health of the driver and passengers.
More than half of the accidents in 2024, or 3,052, occurred between September and December, including many at dusk and later hours, when visibility is lower, police officials said.
Authorities advise drivers, including tourists, to slow down and exercise caution along road sections bordering forests, where the probability of a deer encounter increases.
POTENTIALLY FATAL CONSEQUENCES
A 27-year-old reporter for a regional newspaper said she was driving a car in the town of Betsukai in eastern Hokkaido early one morning after an assignment when a deer emerged ahead of her vehicle.
She felt a strong shock and heard a loud bang. She instinctively turned the wheel and ended up in the opposite lane.
Her car was dented in the front, but she was unhurt.
“But I still shudder at the thought that I could have been killed if there had been a car coming from the opposite side,” she said of the accident in 2023.
In a different case, a Hokkaido sika deer ran onto a national highway in Shibecha, also in eastern Hokkaido, in 2022, leading to an automobile collision that killed two men.
Officials of the General Insurance Association of Japan’s Hokkaido Branch said a record 755.59 million yen ($4.86 million) was paid in automobile damage insurance benefits in 1,229 cases, also a record, in October and November 2024. These were the peak months for automobile accidents involving Hokkaido sika deer.
The population of Hokkaido sika deer was estimated at 730,000 in fiscal 2023, representing the fifth straight annual increase.
The Hokkaido sika deer nearly went extinct during the Meiji Era (1868-1912) because their habitat worsened due to overhunting and heavy snowfalls, officials of Hokkaido’s wildlife measures division said.
The deer population, however, has risen sharply over the past three decades or so, they said.
“Hokkaido sika deer are highly fertile and breed easily,” said Yoshihiro Inatomi, a senior researcher of wildlife management with the Hokkaido Research Organization. “As things stand now, the pace of hunting is falling behind population growth because hunters are aging and for other reasons.”
Hokkaido sika deer usually move in herds. If you see one deer, you should watch out for others that could be around, Inatomi said.
AloJapan.com