Kohei Nagira is seen in this photo provided by the individual.
SAPPORO — A single photograph of a Yezo sika deer taken in north Japan has captured global attention. The shot, taken by a high school teacher living in Kushiro, Hokkaido, has been nominated for the People’s Choice Award in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, organized by the Natural History Museum, London. If the photo wins, it will mark the first time a Japanese photographer has ever captured the prize.
The image shows a male Yezo sika deer continuing to live with its rival’s head impaled on its antler after a deadly clash. The photo was captured in February 2021 on the snowy plains of the Notsuke Peninsula, which stretches from the town of Shibetsu into the town of Betsukai in eastern Hokkaido.
The photographer, Kohei Nagira, 31, teaches at Kushiro Municipal Kushiro Hokuyo High School. He was walking on a recreation trail one snowy Saturday evening when the deer appeared about 30 meters ahead. Calmly, he photographed it as it grazed and lay down.
A few months earlier, in the autumn of 2020, Nagira first encountered this deer. He noticed a strange figure on the grasslands while driving along the coast of the Notsuke Peninsula. “What could have happened?” he wondered as he pulled over and peered through his lens until the scene came into focus. From that day, he spent months observing the same deer.
At first, he imagined a dramatic ending, thinking, “It’ll starve and die.” But the deer, indifferent to human worries, kept eating heartily and went about its life without a care.
A photograph by Kohei Nagira, nominated for the People’s Choice Award in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition organized by Natural History Museum, London. (Photo provided by the individual)
“Seeing it as pitiful or wanting to remove the carcass may be misplaced kindness coming from us humans,” Nagira reflected. He discovered one of nature’s true wonders, which leaves no room for sentimentality.
Nagira, who is from west Japan’s Shimane Prefecture, decided to move far from home to Hokkaido after someone he met in his third year of university during a trip to Yakushima Island in Kagoshima Prefecture told him, “I’ve traveled all around Japan, and of all the places, eastern Hokkaido was the best — especially the sunrise over Lake Kussharo.” After graduation, Nagira relocated to east Hokkaido, where he now teaches geography and history while photographing wildlife in his spare time.
He is especially drawn to Yezo sika deer. “When I first saw one, it looked thin and gaunt, yet its noble form was simply magnificent,” he says.
For the contest’s People’s Choice Award, judges select about 25 pictures deemed the most compelling from roughly 60,000 entries, and the winner is decided by an online popularity vote. Nagira’s work is among the nominees picked last year. Online voting closed on March 18, and the winner will be announced March 25.
In eastern Hokkaido, which his students often dismiss as “the sticks,” vast, magnificent nature unfolds in every direction. With a desire to show them such beauty, Nagira has continued to record natural scenes through his camera. He has been telling them, “It’s an amazing place,” and he hopes that his words now carry real weight with his students.
(Japanese original by Haruka Ito, Hokkaido News Department)
AloJapan.com