Tourists are allowed to feed the deer special sugar-free crackers which do not come in plastic – yet despite warnings, some visitors to the park bring other treats and end up littering the area with plastic bags, which the animals consume.
Japan has introduced an innovative solution to protect the world-famous deer of Nara Park from plastic waste – edible bags made from rice.
The herd of about 1,200 deer is a major tourism draw to the city of Nara, near Osaka, and has been protected by law.
Last year, a deer was found dead in the park with 4kg of plastic waste in his stomach.
Nara resident Takashi Nakamura, who runs a paper company in the city, came up with the idea of creating bags made from rice bran that are easy for the deer to digest.
He told BBC News that, after reading about the deer dying from plastic consumption, he and two other locals worked together to invent the deer-friendly bag.
Mr Nakamura said the bags were made from recycled milk cartons and rice bran — the same ingredient that is used in the deer-friendly crackers.
Around 3,500 bags have been sold to six local companies so far, he said, including the city’s tourism bureau, a local bank and a pharmacy.
And if the project is successful, it could find a wider market. Nara deer are not the only animals facing problems due to plastic waste. In 2018, vets removed around 85kg of plastic from the stomach of an abandoned bull that had been living on the streets of Pune, India.
Tourist, 12, and guide lose limbs in shark attack in Egypt
The youngster, from the Ukraine, was snorkelling with his mother and the local guide when the two-metre long predator struck.
Authorities have now suspended all activities at the Ras Mohammed Nature Reserve where the incident took place, Egypt’s Environment Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
Video footage captured at the location before the attack on Saturday showed the shark — believed to be an Oceanic Whitetip — acting aggressively, it said.
No further details were released by authorities in the African country but a statement put out by Ukraine’s State Agency for the Development of Tourism said the child was in intensive care, and that surgery had failed to save his arm.
An Egyptian health official, speaking anonymously, said that the family’s guide had lost a leg, and the mother suffered light injuries.
Shark attacks are generally rare in the region but a German tourist was killed there in 2010 during a spate of five incidents in just a few days.
