00:00Hey guys, as we drive around Hokkaido, two things that we see a lot of.
00:04One is deer, and the other one is signs warning us about deer on the roads.
00:10Now look at that one. Look out for Bambi. That's a classic, isn't it?
00:14But it's a really serious issue, apparently.
00:17There are approximately 730,000 deer in Hokkaido,
00:21and every year there are around 5,000 car accidents involving vehicles colliding with deer.
00:30So it's a really big issue.
00:32So every road you drive on, you'll see numerous signs, one after another,
00:37warning about the deer, because it's such a big issue.
00:40So everywhere we went, look out for deer, look out for deer.
00:44Now and again you get other ones as well. Look out for tanuki, look out for foxes.
00:49But the deer is the most common. We just see it all the time, and see deer all the time
00:53as well.
00:56So the signs vary from those boring sort of diamond-shaped ones to all sorts of creative ones like that
01:01one.
01:03And then warning information like this.
01:08They have these brochures in a service area beside the highway in all different languages,
01:12because obviously Hokkaido gets a lot of tourists, and a lot of the tourists would be driving like we were.
01:17So all different languages warning about the deer.
01:21So it's a huge issue evidently.
01:25The other thing that they have that's sort of interesting is,
01:28they'll have these high wire fences you can see up to the left there at the top,
01:32and over on the right there.
01:34So really high chain wire fences.
01:40Really high.
01:41To keep the deer off the road, or try and keep the deer off the road.
01:44And they will just go on and on and on,
01:47kilometre after kilometre of these fences.
01:50Endless.
01:52Just trying to keep the deer off the road.
01:54And then, as mentioned, the other thing we see is a lot of deer.
01:59So at first we were sort of excited,
02:01oh look there's some deer.
02:03And then as we drove on, we just realised every day as we were driving,
02:07there's deer, there's some deer, there's some deer.
02:10So just all over the place.
02:12In the farmer's fields.
02:13Some of the farmers seem to put fences around their fields,
02:16and sometimes electric fences, to keep the deer off their crops.
02:20But a lot of the farmers just seem to just accept it.
02:23So they just let the deer do what they want to do.
02:28So it's sort of interesting for us,
02:30because where we live we don't usually see deer.
02:33So we quite enjoyed seeing them.
02:35But it was an issue.
02:37We were particularly observant in the forested areas,
02:40and areas where there were a lot of deer.
02:43Looking out for them jumping on the roads.
02:49They weigh up to 200 kilograms, apparently.
02:52So you can imagine hitting one of those with your car,
02:55would be very sad for the deer,
02:56and also would do extensive damage to the car.
02:59200 kilograms is pretty serious, isn't it?
03:01So beware of deer in Hokkaido.
03:06More videos coming soon.
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