Analysing food-derived interactions between tourists and sika deer (Cervus nippon) at Miyajima Island in Hiroshima, Japan: implications for the physical health of deer in an anthropogenic environment

ABSTRACT

Sika deer (Cervus nippon) on Miyajima Island in Hiroshima, Japan, are accustomed to a human environment and close tourist-deer interactions occur. In 2008, city officials banned deer feeding in response to an increasing number of human-deer conflicts. Nevertheless, this regulation remains ineffective. In this study, food-derived interactions between tourists and deer were analyzed, and a faecal analysis was conducted to examine the effects of potentially beneficial bacteria on the digestive system of deer. Over 64 hours of observation, a total of 397 tourist-deer interactions were recorded. Most interactions involved tourists’ food purchases from street stalls (49.6%). The initiator of each interaction was recorded for 267 events (67.3%), and it was found that deer initiated nearly twice as many interactions as tourists (tourists: 93 events; deer: 174 events). However, feeding occurred in only 11.5% of deer-initiated interactions, while feeding occurred in 50.5% of tourist-initiated interactions. The analysis of gastrointestinal bacterial community compositions showed that deer in the tourism district possessed a lower portion of the order Lactobacellales than deer in the non-tourism district. This was presumably due to different food sources, indicating that the human-influenced environment, of which feeding is one element, could affect the physical health of the deer.

KEYWORDS:

• Deer
• feeding
• gastrointestinal bacterial community
• human-animal interactions
• management
• urban wildlife tourism

Acknowledgements

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the editor and anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments. We would also like to send our acknowledgement to Techno Suruga Laboratory and Dr. Hiromi Tsubota at Hiroshima University for assisting our work. The author (RU) was supported through the Hiroshima University TAOYAKA Program for creating a flexible, enduring, peaceful society, funded by the Program for Leading Graduate Schools, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.